


N-Force Gaiden

by MrLsSidekick



Series: Nintendo Superhero AUs [1]
Category: Captain N: The Game Master, N-Force, 光神話 | Kid Icarus (Video Games), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series, 新・光神話 パルテナの鏡 | Kid Icarus: Uprising (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Anthology Series, Constructive Criticism Welcome, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-07-03 14:48:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15821076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrLsSidekick/pseuds/MrLsSidekick
Summary: A bunch of side stories from the N-Force universe (see preface for more info)





	1. Preface

Some of you out in reader-land may be wondering what this is, and where N-Force has been since it hasn’t been updated in nearly a month at this point.

The long and short of it is I’ve decided to put the main storyline of N-Force on hold for the time being, for personal reasons. Does this mean I’ll never come back to it, I don’t know. What I do know is that I still love writing for these characters, and there’s still a wide universe of Nintendo characters to explore, so I still want to write more N-Force stories, just not the main one. And I know there are some plotlines I’m leaving hanging that means, like the whole Orcos reveal at the end of the last chapter, or the Dark Pit storyline. At this current point in time, I don’t know how to really proceed with those lines, part of the personal reasons.

But that is why I created this, “The N-Force Gaiden.” As the name implies, it’s all the little side stories of our N-Force team, when they’re not fighting the big baddies like Hades, or Orcos, or other major villains. These are your “villain-of-the-week” kind of stories, or sometimes they’ll just be little stories of what the heroes do in their spare time, just hanging out around Light Laboratories, or sometimes it’ll be a story about someone that isn’t one of the main members of the team. The stories are gonna range from silly to serious, from happy to emotional, it’ll be a grab bag, a little bit of something for everyone, much like the selection of games on Nintendo consoles.

These aren’t going to be regular updates, just really more when I have a story I want to tell in this universe. I do want to aim for at least one story a month, but I can’t guarantee. As well, all of these stories are going to be self-contained, no multi-part storylines like in the main series. As well, since I have the general layout of the main story of N-Force, I may be jumping around at points in the timeline. In such events, I’ll be writing a bit of catch up in the opening notes of chapters, telling you all that you would need to know, so people aren’t like “Wait, who the hell is this?” or “What’s happening?”

Once again, this doesn’t mean the end of the main storyline, just a temporary hiatus. In the meanwhile, enjoy the stories printed here! And if you’re pressed for something to read in the interim between stories here, check out my other stories: Doctor Who (which is another thing I need to get back to updating) and The Casebook of Sherrinford Marsden (which I  _ really _ need to update), plus I have a few other things down the line too! 

Other than that, I hope you enjoy N-Force Gaiden!

 - Sean ‘MrLsSidekick’


	2. You Make My Dreams Come True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pit finds himself in a new world, and struggles with figuring out what is reality, and what is just a dream?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the only information needed, pretty much, is that at the statue unveiling ceremony mentioned in the latest chapter of mainline N-Force, something major goes down (not gonna give details in the event that I write the next part at some point). Pit blames himself for it, even though his darker half was in control, so when he gets back control of his body, he locks himself away in his room for nearly a week, which is where we start our fic today.

It had been about a week since Pit had wrangled control of his body back from his inner demons, but it was obvious the whole series of events was still hitting him hard. None of the others could blame him -- his whole world had basically been shattered in an instant, and he was stripped of everything that defined his life: his home, his family in the form of Palutena, even his wings. He had barely said a word to anyone since the whole situation at the statue unveiling, and he often had a distant look in his eyes, as if a spark burning inside of him had been petered out.

Seeing Pit like this disheartened everyone at Light Laboratories, especially Kevin and Sofia. They had barely known the angel a day before all of this had happened, but from that small day, they knew that he wasn’t himself anymore.

“There’s gotta be something we can do for him,” Sofia said. “Something that can pick his spirits up some, if not permanently then at least temporarily!”

“I dunno,” Kevin bemoaned, “if I was in his place, I don’t think there would be much out there to make me feel better, short of restoring everything that was lost, which, uh, is a bit impossible for us right now.”

“Unfortunately true,” Sofia agreed, sighing. She turned to Minerva, who had been sitting with the two. “Minerva, you have an idea?”

“No, regrettably, but I do agree that we must do something, Pit’s downtroddenness hurts me as much as you two, at least if how you described him is indeed the truth.”

Kevin leaned forward in thought. “Well, let’s try to think, when you guys are sad, what do you two do to cheer yourselves up?”

Sofia and Minerva both answered simultaneously. “Read.”

Kevin stared at the two with a slightly amused expression. “Really? Geez, no wonder you two don’t have social lives.”

“I do too have a social life!” Sofia rebutted. “I talk to lots of people!”

“Really now? Name some.”

“Well, there’s Death…”

“WHAT?”

“We’ve met supposed gods and you’re surprised I know Death?”

“Like the Grim Reaper?”

“Sort of.”

“Well, Death doesn’t count, you wouldn’t take Death to a bar on a Friday night.”

“I could, we’d just get some odd stares, once for his appearance, and once when the beer leaks out through his ribcage.”

“Regardless! You still have yet to name a person.”

“Okay, there’s Hector.”

“What, is Hector your nickname for Pestilence?”

“No, I don’t have a nickname for Pestilence.”

“So who’s Hector then?”

“A werejaguar.”

“A what now?”

“A werejaguar.”

“That doesn’t give any further clarification!”

“It’s like a werewolf, but with a jaguar.”

“He doesn’t count then either!”

“Why not?”

“Because you can’t count someone that is a species you sometimes kill as a friend!”

“Oh sure you can, but to heed to your strict guidelines, fine. The only ones left are you guys.”

“And we don’t count because we work together, so, as I said, no social life!”

“I can say the same about you, you know, you haven’t seen anybody but us for over the past month now, you haven’t even gone to school. Ragging on me for having no social life is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, right?”

“Now hold on just a second!”

Minerva sat back and chuckled at the two younger people bickering like siblings. She was always amused watching them go at each other like this, especially on occasions like these when she didn’t even have to instigate them to start arguing. But their yelling faded into the background as Minerva turned her thoughts back to the problem at hand: cheering up Pit.

Kevin was on the right track in thinking about what cheered others up and potentially applying it to Pit. She thought about whether Pit would enjoy reading like she and Sofia do, but quickly dismissed it. When Pit had first woken up, under the control of Dark Pit, she gave him a full test for traumatic brain injury, which includes a portion testing their ability to read. He hadn’t been able to at the point, which Minerva had just chalked up to his brain being rattled still. She repeated the test later, once Pit was back in control of his body again, to the same results, which caused her to think maybe he was illiterate. So reading is not something that Pit could enjoy, it seemed.

Minerva wracked her brain for something that made people happy, before she came up with an idea. “What about a party?”

Kevin and Sofia turned to the woman with a bit of confusion. “I don’t know anyone named Aparti!” exclaimed Kevin. “What kind of name is that anyway?”

“Icelandic, I think,” Sofia chimed in.

Minerva sighed. It seems they were still absorbed in their argument. “No, I mean a  _ party _ , for Pit! People tend to be happier at parties, especially when they’re the subject of the party. Perhaps this is the exact remedy we’re looking for.”

“Oh, true!” Sofia agreed. “I think Pit would be the type who likes a party.”

“Did someone say party?” a voice rang out from the door. The three turned to look to see the voice was coming from Roll, shortly followed by Rock.

“Indeed we did,” Kevin answered. “Pop a squat, guys.”

As the Light twins sat, Minerva explained the whole situation. They were both immediately on board, Roll immensely so. “Leave the party planning to me!” she exclaimed. “I am a party expert, I’m gonna make it such a blast that Pit’s sadness is going to disintegrate like half of the Marvel characters.”

“Please, Roll,” Rock asked, in mock pain, “I’m still trying to recover from that.”

“Well, that works then, we’ll leave that to you Roll,” Minerva responded. “Just let us know if you need any assistance.”

“I’ll just need some for decoration set up.”

“Alrighty! Now, as for the rest of us, we need to think of a proper gift.”

 

* * *

 

The day of the party came, and everyone was impressed. Roll had made the Laboratories up really nice looking, so much so that it barely looked scientific anymore. The halls itself looked like a fancy person’s New Years Party: balloons everywhere, bright golden streamers and lights, a DJ system set up (which Dr. Light had offered to man, much to the distress of the twins). It was by all accounts the set up for a fun party. The only thing that was missing was the guest of honor himself.

Minerva had gone to his chambers to fetch him. Pit had seemed to take a trusting liking to her, he talked to her more than any of the others, so if anyone would be able to get him to leave his room, it would be her. She didn’t know why he developed a feeling like that with her, but she noticed it even way back when he first woke up and clung to her.

She reached her destination and knocked on the door. “Pit?” Minerva called out.”We have a surprise for you!” There was no response. “Pit? Are you there?” Still no response. “If you don’t answer I’ll come in.” Nothing. “Alright, I’m coming in! You better be decent.”

Minerva opened the door to find Pit on the bed, seemingly still out. She walked over to shake him awake and was surprised to find him not awakening. Calling the others, she did a check up on the angel. Everything seemed to be the same, but that didn’t answer the question of what was causing him to be in this state of unconsciousness.

The others shortly arrived and were as surprised as Minerva was. “What happened?” Rock asked.

“I’m not exactly sure,” answered Minerva. “I just found him like this. Nothing else seems to be wrong, no other symptoms, no fluctuations in his vital signs.”

“Pit’s unconscious again?” Kevin commented. “Not to be in poor taste, but this seems to be a recurring problem for him.”

“I think I know what this may be,” Sofia stated, approaching the unconscious angel. She rotated the angel’s head, before reaching down to where her pockets on her coat would be. The only problem was that she wasn’t wearing her coat, she never did unless she was out on business. She instead had a dark grey hoodie on, which didn’t have the pocket room, or the materials, that her coat had. She muttered a simple “Shit” before turning to the others and asking, “Can someone fetch me my coat? Should be hanging in my room.”

“Sure thing!” Roll said, racing out the door.

“Why do you need it?” Rock inquired.

“It has the item I need to verify if what I think is true is true.”

“And what is that?” Kevin added.

“Well, let me put it like this,” Sofia said concerned, “We can’t do anything about it, we just have to hope that he wakes up before he’s dead.”

 

* * *

 

Pit woke up in an unfamiliar, yet still familiar place.  It was a simple bedroom, but it wasn’t a place he recognized, not recently at least. It almost reminded him of how his bedroom in Palutena’s Temple looked, but it definitely wasn’t that room. He sat up, and noticed something else strange: he had no wings. This wasn’t a new feeling, he had been wingless for nearly a month now, but there weren’t even the stubs of wings there anymore. His back was completely bare, which was an odd feeling. He likened it to how it must feel for people to lose an arm.

With all these things, he realized he must be dreaming. If sleeping could get him here, maybe sleeping could get him back. He lied back down and tried to fall asleep once again, but he was interrupted by a booming male voice.

“EURIPIDES!” the voice called. “GET DOWN HERE! NO SON OF MINE WILL BE LATE FOR HIS TUTELAGE!”

Euripides, that was a name that stirred something deep down in Pit’s memories and soul. He didn’t know why, since he always knew he was referred to as Pit, but he felt deep inside that he was the Euripides being called. He quickly headed downstairs, noting along the way that the rest of the house also echoed the Grecian style of a home. Waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs for him was an older man and woman. In them Pit noticed features of himself, he shared the eyes of the woman, and the physical features of the man, though not the voice, which he presumed came from the man.

“Oh, you look so handsome, my little Euripides,” the woman said, turning towards Pit. “You make your parents so proud.”

“I would be more proud of him if he was able to get up a bit earlier, especially on a day like this,” the man qualified.

“Parents?” Pit muttered, confused. “But… but they died!”

“We died? Well, I’d certainly hope not!” the man exclaimed. “Otherwise how would you explain us standing here?”

“Are you feeling alright, dear?” the woman asked, approaching Pit and taking his arm. “Haemon, honey, maybe he should stay home today, he seems unwell.”

“Nonsense, he’ll go to meet Anaximander, I had sent for him all the way from Miletus, I’m not wasting my money by having the student not show up.”

It had taken some time for Pit to process everything that had been said, but when he did, his face lit up and his eyes began to water. “Mom? Dad?” He wrapped himself around his mother in a warm embrace, which was returned after a short moment of surprise.

“Hey, easy kiddo, you’re gonna crush your mother,” Pit’s father joked. “Besides, it’s not like you didn’t see us every day for the past fifteen years now, right?”

“No, I haven’t seen you!” Pit sobbed. “Not in the last over 3,000 years! You’ve been dead! I’ve missed you so much!”

“Again with us being dead?” Pit’s father laughed. “The way you keep talking about it it’s almost like you want us like that.”

“No! I would never want that!”

“Honey, he’s clearly unwell, he’s talking about being 3,000 years old, let’s let him rest.”

“Nonsense. He’s going to meet Anaximander, and that’s final. Magnus and Gaol are already waiting for him.”

“Magnus and Gaol?” Pit asked, wiping the tear away from his eyes. He knew those names, but not from a long time ago. They were humans who Pit had served alongside against the Underworld Army (the latter defecting from the Underworld Army) during the Great War. But… they had also died thousands of years ago.

“Yeah, they’re outside,” Pit’s father explained. “Now go, I don’t want the Miletians to have a bad impression of our family.” 

Pit was ushered, really more pushed, out the door by his father. Outside were, as his father had said, Magnus and Gaol. They looked exactly as Pit had remembered them in their prime, Magnus being tall and muscular with chin length black hair and dark brown eyes, and Gaol being shorter and skinnier, with long blonde hair accentuating her blue eyes. Though as they stood before him, he couldn’t help but notice that they looked a bit younger than Pit, more on parallel with his own age, or, well, the age he appeared to be.

“Heya Pitty!” Gaol called out, waving at him with a broad smile. Magnus said nothing, simply smiling a small smile and giving Pit a weak salute.

Pit didn’t respond to either, he just couldn’t believe the events that were happening before his eyes. He wakes up in what appears to be a Grecian villa, goes downstairs to find his parents alive, not murdered by the Underworld Army, and walks out the door to find his old war buddies not just alive and well, but younger too! 

Pit looked around him, and was met with a very familiar, and almost nostalgic sight: the rolling farmland of Greece fell before him, and a bright blue sky shined overhead. He was home again, or someplace that appeared to be what used to his home. Pit was awestruck, he was just in New Athens, there is no way he was back in Greece. Or, more specifically, based on context, there is no way he was back in Greece 3,000 years ago!

“But...I was just in Light Laboratories a minute ago?” Pit muttered, before being startled by a large hand waving in his face.

“Hey, cloud boy,” Magnus said, still waving his hand, “you still with us here on Earth?” Pit reached out and touched Magnus’ hand, much to the confusion of him and Gaol. “Uhh… you okay dude?”

“You’re real.”

“Of course I’m real, why wouldn’t I be?”

“But you’re dead! Both of you are!”

Magnus and Gaol exchanged confused glances, before laughing. “What are you on about Pitty?” Gaol asked, chuckling.

“Are you okay dude?”

Realizing how crazy he was starting to sound, and realizing it would get him no answers if he continued in this manner, he shook himself, saying, “Sorry, just something odd. Shall we be off?”

The trio began walking down the path, Pit still lost in thought. This entire world seemed to have its own basis of everything, it seemed real. And yet, Pit knew that it couldn’t be real, the real world was the one where he was an angel, and a servant of Lady Palutena… or was it? To be honest, the last month or so had been like one giant nightmare to him, so maybe it was a dream, and this was the real world. But, then, how did he dream 3,000 years worth of memories? And why couldn’t he remember anything in the past of this world?

“I think we lost Pitty again,” Gaol remarked. Pit turned to the two, who were giving him a bit of an amused look, like they had seen him in this state of thought before, but not to this extent.

“Oh, sorry, I’m still just thinking about things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Well, this may sound crazy, but can you humor me for a second?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Can you tell me about myself?”

The other two stopped and stared at him for a minute, completely befuddled, before bursting out laughing. “This has got to be the weirdest joke you’ve ever said, Pit,” Magnus exclaimed.

“I’m serious.” The two fell quiet, looking between each other as if trying to ascertain whether this was actually happening or not. “Just, humor me.”

“Well,” Gaol asked at Magnus, “do you wanna take this one, or should I?”

“I’ll let you handle it, you’re better at the whole explaining thing.”

Gaol sighed. “Alright then.” She turned towards Pit. “Well, your name is Euripides, son of Haemon, though you go by Pit among friends. Your father is the king of Drosia, and you are next in line, which is why we’re going to see this teacher, so he can prepare you with the intelligence needed of a king. You’re fifteen years old, and a bit of a dork, and has his head in the clouds a lot, but still a genuinely nice guy who cares for others… that about sums it up?”

Pit stood in thought for a moment, before saying, “What about being a servant to Palutena?”

Gaol and Magnus turned to Pit with a surprised expression, simultaneously saying “WHAT?”

“When I said your head was in the clouds, Pitty, I didn’t mean literally!”

“Besides,” Magnus added, “Lady Palutena already has that Lilith girl as her servant, she wouldn’t need another one.”

“Lilith?” Pit asked, confused. In all of the time he thought he was an angel, or was an angel, he still wasn’t sure which one was reality, he had never heard of anybody named Lilith in association with Palutena. “Who’s Lilith?”

“Wow, you must really be out of it dude. Lilith’s all anyone’s been talking about recently. She just showed up one day, saying that she worked for Lady Palutena. Started beating up Underworld baddies… speaking of which.”

By this point, the trio had begun approaching the town square, which was wrought with chaos. In the center was a swarm of about 10 metallic formations, which occasionally turned around to show a goblin-like creature on the inside. “Boogities,” Pit muttered. He had fought these before, in his angel life, so he could handle these too. Before he could even think about it, Pit was already dashing into the fray, with Magnus and Gaol yelling after him in the background.

As he ran Pit realized a few things. Firstly, he was moving a lot slower than he was expecting. Then he remembered that he wasn’t an angel, so he wouldn’t have any of the powers. Alright, no problem. He still had his bow and knives… no, he didn’t. Pit then realized he might have made a very big mistake.

Before he could find out exactly how big a mistake he made, however, a red and white blur swooped in, picking him up and placing him on the balcony of a nearby building. The blur slowed down enough to take the form of a female angel, with long red hair. Otherwise, she was dressed exactly how Pit did as an angel, even having the same white wings that he had. She looked at him, saying “What the hell were you thinking? Don’t do that!” before swooping off back to the battle below.

Pit was metaphorically left with whiplash by the sudden rapid pace of events. Was this how the others in the “him as an angel” world felt when he was zooming around all the time? When he was able to think a bit clearer, he realized that that had to be the mysterious Lilith he had heard about. It was odd, she was exactly how he pictured himself as an angel, just, not him.

“Oh, someone else is up here now too,” a voice from behind Pit said. He turned around to see a girl leaning on the back wall of the balcony. She appeared to be around Pit’s age, maybe a bit older, which might explain her height, being a bit taller than Pit. She had brown eyes and short golden hair that turned a bit red at the ends of the hair. Instead of a traditional toga, she wore what could be considered the ancient equivalent of a crop top and a mini skirt, with a noticeable feature being a long blue scarf around her neck. Around her arms and feet, there were also dark wrappings. Stretching, she continued. “So what brought you here? You run into the battle without thinking too?”

Pit laughed, before turning back his attention towards the battle. “Yeah, I dunno. I just… feel like I could do more than I actually can, you know?

“I getcha.” The girl had walked forward and was now leaning on the railing of the balcony next to Pit. “I actually had that same experience. That’s why I’m up here, guess that angel lady only knows one spot to put people out of the way.”

“Heh, maybe.”

“... you said you felt like you could do more than you actually could, right? In what way?”

“Pardon?”

“Like, what did you think you could do? Some kind of powers? Pull some kind of huge weapon out of that cute butt of yours?”

“No, I, uh… wait, what?”

The girl chuckled. “Sorry, I should have warned you, I’m a bit blunt at times. Case in point, I think you got a cute butt. And a cute rest of you for that matter.”

“I-i-i…”

“Ain’t gonna take it back, I’m just laying down the truth. So anyway, what did you think you could do?”

Turning away from her to the battle to get some composure (and to hide his quickly reddening face) Pit answered, “You’ll think I’m crazy if I say it.”

“Try me.”

“Well, uh, I don’t know how to put it. Basically, I thought, well, I thought I was like that angel lady.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, able to fly, super fast, bow and arrow, the whole shebang.”

“Huh.”

“I dunno, I woke up this morning from what I thought was reality, where I was that angel, to find myself here. I don’t have any memory of my life before now in this place, I only have that other life. Now, I’m beginning to wonder if that was the dream and this is the reality, since everything seems so in place here, and I fit in perfectly, except for my memories of that other life… You probably think I’m crazy don’t you?”

The girl started tapping the railing. “Honestly, I don’t think that at all. I’m experiencing the exact same thing, except instead of an angel, I had super speed and lightning powers.”

“You know if you don’t believe me you can just say so, you don’t have to mock me.”

“Honest to god truth. I’m experiencing the same thing, down to the whole having the memories of another life thing. I think they call that dissociation, or something like that?” She began kicking at the ground. “Though I have to say, my life back in that world was kind of shit, so I’m hoping that this reality is the real one. Plus, this is the one I met you in, so it can’t be all that bad.”

Pit laughed. “You know, we only met a few minutes ago, but I already feel closer to you than I do the people I recognized from my other life in this one.”

The other girl smiled. “Heh, maybe I do still have some of my electricity powers.” Pit gave her a confused look, and her smile broke out into a grin, “Because I feel there’s a spark between us.” Pit groaned. “Oh come on, it was funny, you can laugh.” They both laughed. “So,” the girl asked, breaking the silence, “What are you doing after this?”

“Oh, my father wanted me to have lessons with this teacher from someplace, I don’t remember where, somewhere in Ionia I think.”

“Ech, boring. How about, instead, you don’t do that, and we can spend more time together?”

“Why do you want to spend time with me? I’m not that interesting a person. Hell, I can’t even remember who I am.”

“Well, aside from the cute everything part I mentioned earlier, you seem like a nice guy, and, well, I haven’t met anyone that’s going through the same thing I am, so that’s a bonus. Maybe we can work out our dissociations together.”

“I dunno, my father would be pretty angry if he found out I didn’t go.”

“Hey, you said yourself, you didn’t know if this was the dream or the reality. If this is the dream, you can do whatever you want, screw your dad.”

“That’s gambling on the fact that this is the dream though.”

“What, angel boy never gambled before?”

“No, Ms. Sparky Spark, I haven’t. I just make bad decisions.”

“Eh, that’s the same thing when it comes down to it. So come on, let’s make a bad decision together.”

Pit thought about it. As hesitant as he was about this, since he wasn’t sure if this was real or not, this girl did have a charm about her that made it tough for him to say no, something in her eyes maybe. “Okay, one day away can’t hurt.”

“Aww, yeah, let’s go have some fun!” The girl did a small fist pump before turning to head inside to leave. Pit was about to follow her when he heard a vaguely familiar voice.

“PIT!”

He turned around, trying to locate the sound of the voice, but nothing jumped out at him as the source. Shrugging, he followed the girl back inside, who he found waiting for him at the edge of the stairs down. As they descended, Pit realized something.

“I don’t think we ever were properly introduced. I’m Euripides, but you can call me Pit.”

“Phosphora! Or, at least that’s what everyone here calls me, don’t know why, it’s not my name.”

“Oh, what is your real name then?”

“...I can’t remember. So Phosphora it is… but  _ you _ can call me Phos.”

“Alright Phos.” The two exited down to the street. The fight was still going on in the main square of the town, so the two opted to head in the opposite direction. “So,” Pit wondered, “what did you have in mind?”

“Well, since you seem to still be worried about your father finding out, I say we stay out of town. Which works out, because I know the perfect place!”

* * *

The place that Phosphora had had in mind was far, far away from the hustle and bustle of the town.  A nice grassy field was their destination, with a giant oak tree situated in the middle of it. The two sat amongst the roots of the tree and spent the better part of the day sitting and chatting about this and that, enjoying each other’s company. A farmer with his herd of sheep had taken up grazing nearby, but the two paid them no mind, nor did the farmer pay them any mind.

As the sun started to set, the two’s conversation had moved onto what they could remember about their other lives. Pit told his story of how he was orphaned at a young age because of the Underworld Army, adopted by Palutena, made to be a warrior, the 2,000 years of no human contact, and then all the sudden events that happened before this, including his being cast out of Skyworld.

“God that sucks man,” Phosphora stated at the end of it all. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that shit.”

“You know, you’re the first person I’ve ever opened up to about this whole thing, aside from the people directly involved through my whole history, like Viridi.”

“I’m glad I could be that for you then. It must have been difficult.”

Pit smiled sadly. “Yeah, but you know what, getting it off my chest finally, it’s made it easier to handle.”

“Well, that’s good. Those human friends of yours, the ones you made just recently, they don’t know the story right?”

“Right.”

“Well, if this turns out to be the dream, and that’s the reality, when you get back, you should tell them. If they are as good friends as you make them out to be, I’m sure you’ll feel much better about it, like you do now.”

“You’re probably right… thank you for listening.”

“Of course, Pit.”

“Well, what about you. You mentioned earlier that there was some shit you wanted to get away from too, you want to talk about that?”

Phosphora pulled her knees to her chest. “There isn’t really that much to say, not like yours. You have such a detailed past and history, mine, comparatively, is not that much.”

“Well, I’m willing to listen if you want to go into it, detailed or not.”

Phosphora paused for a moment in hesitation. “I was one of the popular girls in school. ‘Beauty with a Heart of Gold’ they called me. I had it all, loving family and friends, a loving boyfriend, good grades. Then, one night, there was this meteor shower, all these things landing around the entire city. One thing ended up near me, these bracelets, gave off an electric spark when I approached them. Before I could even put them on, however, these guys swooped in and kidnapped me. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in what looks like an operating room with these scars,” she unwrapped the coverings on her arms and legs to reveal large scars on them, “on my wrists and ankles, and the ability to create electrical shocks. Not just tiny ones, big ones, ones that can kill people, I know, whoever captured me performed tests on me. I was finally able to escape, eventually, but on the outside, everything had changed. I couldn’t control my powers, still can’t, so everyone viewed me as a monster, and a freak. My family disowned me, my friends turned against me, I nearly killed my boyfriend because I was sad he was afraid of me… my powers grow out of control when I get emotional.” Tears started to well up in her eyes. “I lost everything, Pit. You’re the first person who has even spent time with me since then.” Phosphora broke down into sobs, burying her face in her knees.

Pit remained silent, but moved his arms around her in a quasi-embrace, as much as one can when someone is holding their knees and sobbing. They remained like that for a while, just sitting there silently. Eventually, Phosphora’s sobs quieted down into sniffles, and then fell into silence. She soon looked up at Pit, who had moved slightly to allow her to get out of her knee holding position. She eventually pulled Pit into a very tight embrace, which he returned.

“This may be a bit soon to say it Pit, but I think I love you. Aside from the cuteness I mentioned, you’re the only person to have spent time with me, and even now, now that you know how much of a freak I am, you don’t run away in fear.”

“In the other world, I have wings. Speaking as someone who is different from the rest, it’s okay to be different. Honestly, it is.”

Phosphora pulled back out of the embrace and looked Pit dead in the eyes. “I love you Pit.”

Pit had been thinking about it all day, trying to decide if earlier to Phosphora’s blatant flirting was he turning red from embarrassment or was he turning red because he liked her. At that moment, though, he knew what the answer was. “I love you too Phos.”

The two hugged once again, which turned into a kiss (which Pit kind of floundered at, as to expect from someone like Pit). When the two finally separated, they turned their attention back towards the sunset and sat together enjoying the beauty.

After a bit, Phosphora turned back to Pit and asked, “Uhh, do you think you could skip meeting with that Ionian teacher again tomorrow?”

Pit looked down at her and smiled. “As you said, if this is a dream, we can do whatever we want. And I want to spend time with you.”

Phosphora grinned brightly as she settled her head into Pit’s lap, looking back towards the sunset. “Good, because I want to make this the best dream ever.”

* * *

Pit never actually did get a chance to meet the teacher that his father had brought all the way from Miletus to teach him. But he did proceed every day from that one onwards with Phosphora, sometimes around the tree, sometimes not. Wherever they were though, they always had the greatest of times just being in each others’ companies. They were as happy as two lovebirds could ever be.

Pit’s family, however, did not approve. Pit was supposed to be next in line as king of Drosia, and yet here he was, talking about love with a commoner. It would never come to be, Pit’s family would say, they would set him up with a princess of another allied kingdom, perhaps Eresesia. But no, Pit kept on spending time with the common girl.

This eventually lead to a dinner confrontation about it, with Pit’s father ordering him to cease seeing Phosphora, or else he would lose his position as next in line. Pit was disowned the next day.

Now a man free of familial restrictions, Pit met with Phosphora in the town that evening to bring the news. After the initial shock wore off, Phosphora was delighted; Pit’s family’s detestment of her lead to a situation of mutual detestment. 

The two decided to go build a little farmhouse off somewhere else, far far away from the hustle and bustle of Drosia. What better place, they decided, than to go build by the tree where they had first fallen in love? However, as luck would have it, they arrived at the tree to find a new farmhouse built just a short ways away from it, seemingly empty. The two entered the building to find it completely furnished with everything that a house would need, as well as someone in the house. Sitting at the table in the dining room as a female angel with long red hair.

“Ah, you’re here,” the angel said. “I was wondering when you two would eventually arrive.”

“You were expecting us?” Pit asked. “How did you know we would be here?”

“Lady Palutena knows all the little goings on in the world. She found out about your disownment. As disappointed as she is in not getting to work with you in a regal-deital relationship, she is happy for you two to be together. Which brings me to this,” the angel waved her arms around, gesturing to the area around her, “your pre-wedding gift.”

“Pre-wedding gift?” Phosphora asked. “How can we have a pre-wedding gift if we haven’t even planned the wedding yet?”

“It’s a gift for if in the inevitable event of your marriage Lady Palutena cannot attend, she cannot be said to have not blessed the marriage. And if you haven’t even planned the wedding, then it is still before the wedding, no?”

“Fair point.”

“Lady Palutena would gift us an entire house for our wedding?” Pit asked, still in awe.

“Yes, of course. She, and by proxy, I, only have the best wishes for you and hope for your happiness.” She turned to Pit. “Are you happy, Pit?”

“Yes, quite, thank you.”

“Then we are happy too. And now I take my leave. Good evening, and congratulations. Many happy years.”

The angel turned to walk out the door to leave the happy couple in their new home, but Pit stopped her. “You’re Lilith, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s correct, why do you ask?”

“Well, I’m not sure if you remember, but a while ago, you were fighting off some Boogities, in the town square of Drosia.”

“Yes, I remember that. I stopped both of you from running into the middle of battle and getting yourselves killed.”

“Right. Well, in doing so, you inadvertently introduced the two of us, so I’ve been meaning to thank you for that. So thank you.”

“Oh! How fortuitous. You’re welcome for that then. I hope my action may bring many many years of happiness to you both.”

“We hope so too. Good evening!”

And with that, the angel stepped outside, and flew off back to Skyworld, while Pit returned inside to fully explore the scope of his new farmhouse with his “inevitable” wife.

* * *

The inevitable day eventually came about a year into their living together in the farmhouse.  Because of the fact that neither participant had family that was willing or able to come to the ceremony, the couple didn’t have to worry about a large venue, so they chose the most fitting spot: underneath the tree where it all began over three years at that point. The only guests in attendance were Magnus and Gaol, who by this point had also begun dating themselves. 

Once the ceremony itself was all said and done, the newly married couple invited the two others in attendance to a nice dinner at the farmhouse, which they graciously accepted, though they made sure to mention they would leave before “whatever it is you married couples do on your wedding night.” Over the dinner, the two couples had plenty of laughs, and nostalgic moments about the good old days, including the day that Pit and Phosphora first met.

“Your head was really in the clouds that day, man,” Magnus reminisced, laughing. “What was it you were going on about? Being a servant to the goddess of light or something like that?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Pit agreed, laughing as well.

“Didn’t you also think that we were dead, Pitty?” Gaol added.

“What? You never mentioned that part when we met later that day!” Phosphora said, giving her husband a light punch in the arm while laughing. “Why did you leave out the best part?”

“Hey, I didn’t think it was important! The angel part was weird enough!”

“I can just imagine you now,” Phosphora continued. She put a mock terrified look on her face, as she patted all over Pit, pretending to be in complete disbelief as she muttered, “Oh my god, oh my god, how are you real?”

Magnus and Gaol burst out laughing. “Are you sure you weren’t spying on us that day?” Magnus jokingly asked. “You got his reaction perfectly.”

“Hey! I wasn’t that bad. C’mon, give me a bit of credit.”

“So Pitty,” Gaol said once she finally stopped giggling, “do you still believe all of this, or was all that a thing of the past?”

“I mean, look, I’ve been here for three years now, and not once did I have another dream that I was an angel in some future world again. I know this is the reality now. Besides, I’m married to a wife I love now, why would I want to give that up?”

“Aww, I love you too hubby.” Phosphora reached her arms around Pit in a hug and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Get a room you two,” Magnus said half-jokingly.

“What, not a fan of the public affection Magnus?” Gaol teased. “So you won’t like it if I do this?” She rested her head on Magnus’ shoulder.

“Great now you got her doing it too.” Pit, Phosphora, and Gaol giggled at that.

After a moment’s giggle, Gaol remarked, “You know, this is nice and all, but his shoulders are always so uncomfortable, you think with all his muscle it would be a softer cushion, but no, it’s super bony.”

“Right?” Phosphora agreed. “Same with Pit’s shoulders, sometimes it’s like a sharp jab to the side of my head.”

“Alright, I see how it is,” Pit said with mock offense. “If you don’t like my bony shoulders so much, I’m going to take them and myself outside and play some horseshoes. Coming Magnus?”

Joining in on the joke, Magnus agreed, saying, “Yeah, let’s go, my shoulder bones can only take so much detestment.”

Despite their significant others’ apologies and pleads, it fell on deaf ears as the two men walked outside.

The two men had set up the pitches and had played a few rounds already. They were fairly evenly matched. Pit had accuracy, but not as much strength, and Magnus had the inverse. As they played, they talked about various things, like how and when to propose (a thought which had crossed Magnus’ mind due to Pit’s doing so), what the girls might be talking about inside, et cetera. They also at times used the conversation to try and distract when the other was taking a shot, throwing them off their game by yelling right as they were about to throw.

The score was tied with 2 rounds all, when a voice came from nearby, saying, “I hope I’m not interrupting your game.” Pit and Magnus both turned to the sound of the voice to see that Lilith was standing there.

“Oh, hello Lilith!” Pit walked over to the angel and shook her hand. “What are you doing here?”

“Lady Palutena and I heard about your wedding. She couldn’t come down to congratulate her herself, so I am here to do it in her stead.”

“Well thank you!”

“You both are still happy, correct?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

Magnus approached the angel at this point. “Do you think Lady Palutena would bless my and Gaol’s marriage?”

“I’m sure she will. She has noticed your happiness together and supports it wholeheartedly.”

“Thank you, Lilith.”

“Well, I must be off then.” Lilith turned to Pit. “Congratulations again, and may you be happy.” With that, Lilith took off.

Pit and Magnus turned back around to walk towards their horseshoes game when Pit heard another call for him. “PIT!” He had heard the voice before, back when he first met Phosphora on that balcony. He turned around, and to his surprise, he saw someone. It was a girl, about his age, with her dirty blonde hair tied up into a ponytail, wearing a long black trench coat. Pit stopped dead in his tracks; he recognized that person, it was someone he hadn’t thought about in the entire time since he woke up here.

“Sofia?” He called out, but when he looked further, the figure was gone. Pit was confused. He had stopped having these delusions a long time ago, why suddenly now did they start up again?

Magnus had come back up to where Pit was standing. “Why the hell did you just say ‘Wisdom’ for no reason?” When he got no response, due to Pit’s still being out of it trying to figure out what was happening, he continued, “You alright dude?”

Pit snapped out of the trance he was in and answered, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just… I think the excitement of today is starting to get to me a bit.”

“Ah, I getcha. Well, it’s getting late, it’s about time that Gaol and I shoved off already, leave you two lovebirds to your nest building.”

“Thanks, man.”

The two men headed back inside. Shortly afterward, Gaol and Magnus left for their house, and Pit and Phosphora left for their bedroom. Pit didn’t mention what he saw to Phosphora, no need to potentially dampen the mood on a day like this. Besides, if the hallucinations persisted, he’d mention it to her then.

* * *

But more hallucinations never came.  After that day, he didn’t see the figure, or anyone or anything that reminded him of his “other life.” Things were back to normal. Pit wrote off that incident as a one-off thing, something that was brought on by the excitement of everything about that day.

Pit and Phosphora enjoyed a happy marriage together, jointly tending to the farm, as well as the twins, Leon and Philomela, who came along about 9 months after their wedding night. Pit was especially excited about the kids, even so much as running through the town shouting the good news when he first found out Phosphora was pregnant. Along with the dog they took in (who helped herd the sheep), and adjacently the relationship with "Uncle" Magnus and "Aunt" Gaol, the family was as happy as any family could be.

Then came the day of May 5th, exactly five years after Phosphora and Pit first met. They decided to celebrate it, with their two precious bundles of joy, by having a picnic under the same tree that the pair had fallen in love under. It was going to be perfect. The only thing that was needed was some additional items to snack upon, both Pit and Phosphora had toiled in the kitchen preparing the main dishes, which consisted of roasted lamb, but they just needed a little bit extra, some veggies perhaps. So Pit was sent into town to the farmer’s market to grab some last minute vegetables.

As he was exiting the market, vegetables in hand, he heard a voice crying out to him, a voice which he hadn’t heard in two years. “Pit! Can you hear me?” He turned around and saw Sofia standing there again, though this time she didn’t disappear. 

He approached her, saying “Sofia? What are you doing here?”

“I don’t have time to explain, so I’ll have to make it quick. You’re being… possessed is probably the best word for it, by a demon known as a Lilith. You may have seen it in whatever dream it’s making you see, it takes the form of a woman with long red hair. It sucks away at your life force as you sleep, trapped in its dream. If you’re content with the world around you in the dream, you’re less willing to wake up from it, allowing it to feed more. Once its victim is aware of its situation, it can’t feed on it anymore, so it will try to kill the victim. If you’re hearing this, the clock has already started. Don’t let it kill you. Find a way to wake up from the dream before you can. If you need an idea, think about those dreams when you’re in free fall, and about to hit the bottom, but always wake up right before you splat on the ground. Try to replicate that sensation. Good luck Pit, we’re all counting on you to pull through.”

And with that, Sofia disappeared again. Pit was left reeling from the sudden revelation of the true state of affairs. Suddenly, all the memories of the previous life came rushing back to him, it wasn’t just a dream, it was all real. But if that was the case, was no one else real? His wife, his children, his best friends, were they all just figments of his imagination? Phosphora did say that she was also experiencing dissociation, but did his mind just come up with that to help him cope with his own dissociation. Pit didn’t have any answers, but he knew he had to do something, or he might die. 

He quickly rushed back to the farmhouse, where Phosphora met him at the door, becoming clearly concerned once she saw how worried he looked. He explained what Sofia had told him, and she sat down at the table, taking it all in. A few moments of silence passed after Pit finished before Phosphora finally collected her thoughts.

“I don’t want to believe it, I want this world to be the truth. But if that’s not the case, we need to make sure that you get out of this alive.” She admitted with a wavering voice. “So, what do we do?”

“Well,” Pit said, sitting next to his wife, “I say we proceed as normal, let’s not worry the kids with it. If Lilith shows up, we run. As fast as we can.”

“That’s not the most fool-proof plan.”

“As I told you a long time ago, I make bad decisions. You just have to trust me on this one.”

Phosphora wiped a tear forming in her eye and stood up, hugging her husband. “I trust you until the end of time,” she whispered into his ear. Pit returned the embrace before the two pulled apart. Phosphora went to grab the picnic basket off of the table, and telling Pit, “You grab the twins, let’s go have one hell of a picnic.”

* * *

The picnic went well, all things considered.  Both Pit and Phosphora were completely on edge during its entirety, whereas their two small children were blissfully unaware of the danger that could befall them. But the danger seemed to not come, the only natural tensity besides that in Pit and Phosphora was that of the slightly overcooked lamb.

After the meal was done, the twins ran around the hill, playing without a care in the world. Their parents were relaxing, or trying their best to relax, lying up against the tree as they did five years before, for what they knew could very realistically be the last time. But they didn’t talk about that fact, they danced around it as much as possible. Pretend that nothing was wrong at all, that the whole Lilith situation was just some nightmare that passed. As the two held each other close, they both had a deep wanting to never leave this position, even though they knew they had to. It was bliss.

As if the world itself knew they were feeling that way, a voice erupted from nearby: “Pit, Phosphora, are you happy?”

The couple nearly jumped a foot in the air at the voice. They both quickly stood up and took defensive positions, spinning around to face the red-haired angel leaning on the tree nearby.

“You can drop the facade, Lilith, we know what you really are,” Pit retorted. “I should have known something was fishy when there was a different servant of Palutena, one that I never heard of. How dare you soil the position’s integrity, you demon?”

“Now now Pit, no need for name calling,” Lilith chided. “Besides, I fooled you for five years. If it wasn’t for that pesky Belmont’s intrusion, I wouldn’t have to be taking these measures.”

“These measures? You mean killing me.”

“Killing is such a horrid word, I prefer tying a loose end. And it doesn’t have to come to that either. You’re both reasonable people. I’m sure you can fall in line.”

“Both?”

“Of course, you didn’t think it was just you Pit that I made this world for. Sure you were the main basis, what with all this Grecian business, but you weren’t the only one. Hell, you even thanked me for bringing you two together.”

“Me?” Phosphora realized.

“Precisely. I’m honestly surprised that neither of you figured that out when you both had pasts not in line with this world. But I digress. Once again, I don’t have to kill either of you.”

“No, we just live out the rest of time in this dream while in the real world you eat us.”

“Eat you? No, gods no, I’m not a carnivore. You die in your sleep in the real world once your soul is gone. From what I understand that’s the most peaceful way to go, you don’t feel a thing. Besides, you’ll be in here all that time, spending time together, and with your beautiful children. How can you turn it down?”

“We need to go home though, we don’t belong in this dream!” Pit exclaimed.

“Why? Why do you want to go back? I gave you everything you both would ever want: love, family, friends that care. I even gave you a chance at power, and you’re just gonna throw that all away? I know what happened to both of you, why would you want to go back to that?”

“Because there are people there who care for us!”

“Really now, are you sure about that? Because all I can see is that there are people that pity you, Pit, not care for you. They feel sorry for the poor angel who lost everything, they don’t care for you. And as for you Phosphora, you have no one! Everyone thinks of you as a monster, a freak, who are you going to go back to?”

“Me,” Pit answered. “I’ll be there for her.” Phosphora, who had become silent due to crying, turned to look at him with love in her eyes. She had finally found someone who cared.

“That’s provided you can even find her. Why take the risk of not ever seeing her again. It’s a gamble. Stay with her, in here, and be happy forever.”

The couple stood tall, and Pit simply stated, “No thanks, we’re good.”

Lilith sighed. “As you said, you don’t make gambles, just bad decisions.” She clapped her hands, and the world started to destroy itself around them. The ground started to crack and break apart into nothingness, and the tree behind them began to creak and fall.

“Run!” Phosphora yelled, and the two of them sprinted down the hill and away from the encroaching nothingness, scooping up their two children in the process. They passed their farmhouse as its walls began to crumble into a pile of debris. As the hills around them crumbled into nothingness, so too did their children in their arms. 

But their feet did not allow them to stop and mourn the loss of the two children, their feet began to pick up the pace, to the point that they were running at speeds that Pit was normally accustomed to as an angel. He turned to his right and saw Phosphora running in pace with the angel, her body emitting blue bursts of electricity behind her. Perhaps, Pit thought, reality was seeping back into the dream now. Eventually, she even began to outpace him, though Pit never fell too far behind.

The two ran as fast as they could, watching around them as the world continued to decay and fall. They had reached the town of Drosia when they eventually encountered the crumble and decay was no longer just behind them, but around all four sides of them. The couple looked at each other, both simultaneously knowing where the other was thinking about going. They ran through the town square and ended up at the building where Lilith had begun this whole affair, five years before. The two dashed upstairs, heading out to the balcony before plopping down against the railing, tired as all get out.

“What do we do now?” Phosphora asked, panting for air.

“Well,” Pit responded, equally out of breath, “Sofia mentioned that the only way to get out of this is to wake up before she can kill us.”

“Easier said than done. We’ve been here what seems like five years without waking up. How are we suddenly going to beat that now, especially with a rapidly shrinking area around us?”

“She mentioned something about dreams where we’re falling from heights, and always wake up before we reach the bottom.”

The two of them looked at each other, realizing their location, and turning around and pulling themselves up to look over the edge of the balcony to the ground below.

“Do you think that would be a far enough fall to kill someone?” Pit wondered.

“Only one way to find out,” Phosphora answered, stepping up on top of the railing and offering a hand to Pit. Pit took her hand and stepped up onto the railing as well.

“Don’t do anything you’re going to regret now,” a familiar voice came from the stairs to the balcony. The two turned towards the voice to find, to their surprise Magnus and Gaol standing there. “This can all be fixed! Just stay here with us!”

Pit and Phosphora both turned away from the couple on the stairs to face each other. “Ignore them,” Pit advised. “Lilith is trying to get us to stay.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Gaol continued. “What if you just break your legs?”

“Well, I guess this is goodbye then,” Pit sadly said to Phosphora, ignoring Lilith.

“You’d just be sitting ducks for Lilith then!”

“Not goodbye, angel boy,” Phosphora corrected, “Just see you soon. You did make a promise after all.”

“Just step down from the edge! Everything can be better again!”

“Indeed I did. And I’m gonna stay true to that promise. I will find you, and I will be there for you, forever, and ever.”

“You can have your children back! And your home!”

“I love you so much Pit.”

“Don’t do this! I’m warning you!”

“I love you too Phos.”

“You’re going to regret this!”

The couple held each other in a tight embrace and kissed. They could hear somewhere in the background Lilith screaming the word no as they simultaneously lifted their legs and stepped off the railing.

* * *

Pit woke up with a start.  It took him a few moments to register his surroundings but sighed in relief when he did. He was back in Light Laboratories, lying on a bed, surrounded by all of his friends. All of his friends immediately jumped on him in a big hug, welcoming him back to the world of the living and what not. Pit could only wish he had more arms to reach everyone.

As everyone pulled away, Minerva gathered everyone, saying,”Alright, Pit’s probably just been through a lot, fighting for his life, he probably wants a bit of time alone.” She looked back at him, and after a bit of thought, he gave a weak nod back. She ushered everyone out of the room, leaving Pit alone.

He stood up, looking around the room. He stretched and was able to feel the stubs of his wings on his back, a nice change after a while. Every moment that passed made him forget more and more of the dream, so by this point, he could only remember some things. One thing he could was that he didn’t have any kind of wings, and he missed that sensation, strangely enough, even if they were just burnt stubs.

He looked down at the floor, where the body of a demonic looking creature with long red hair and bat wings lay. So this was the Lilith creature he had nearly died to. Huh, it looked, uglier than he remembered.

Minerva entered back into the room. “You looked like you needed a bit less of all the hassle, and if you just want to be alone, that’s fine too, I’ll head off.”

“No, it’s okay, I kinda want a bit of company right now.”

“Alright.” Minerva took a seat on the edge of the bed, and Pit joined her. “You wanna talk about the whole dream? Or nah?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I can’t really remember much about it. I remember that I was back in Greece, and I wasn’t human. And… I met someone. I can’t remember their name or face, but I know I loved them very much. And I made them a promise, but I can’t remember what the promise was. But they were from this world too, being preyed upon by the same Lilith.”

“Hmm, maybe you’ll remember if you meet them again!”

“Yeah, maybe.”

A moment of silence passed between them before Minerva reached next to her and pulled out a present. “Before we found you unconscious, we were planning to have a party for you today, to help cheer you up a bit, show you we cared about you, that you didn’t have to go through everything alone.”

Another thing that Pit remembered flashed into his mind. “So, you guys don’t just pity me?”

“No, not at all. Even though most of us haven’t really gotten a chance to meet you, from the descriptions Kevin and Sofia gave us of you, we are all absolutely honored to know you. Do we think that what happened to you was terrible, yes, but we’re not just being nice to you because of that. You’re a good person Pit.” She hugged Pit. “And we don’t like seeing you down in the dumps, because you’re our friend. So, here.” She presented the present. “A gift from us to you, our friend.”

Pit opened the present to find an MP3 player, not that he knew what it was. Minerva explained, “It’s a music player. If you’re going to be down here on Earth for a while, you might as well get used to the music. So here, let me show you how it works.” She took the device, demonstrating how to play a song, and then shuffling the playlist. “And then, you just pop these in your ears,” referring to the earbuds, “and voila, you can listen to music. Come on, give a listen.”

Pit put one of the earbuds in his ear, while Minerva did the other, and she pressed play. ‘Telephone Line’ by ELO started playing. “Uh, maybe not this one right now.” Next song queued up: ‘Nights in White Satin’ by The Moody Blues. “Not this one either.” Next song: ‘What is Life?’ by George Harrison. “Jeezum crow, why are there so many love songs on this one box.” Pit laughed, even if it did make him think of the mysterious love that he can’t remember. Next song: ‘Ruler of Everything’ by Tally Hall. “Ah, there we go.” The two sat in silence as the song played, occasionally bopping to the beat. When the song ended, the two pulled out their respective earbuds. “So yeah, that’s a gift, from us to you.”

“Thank you, I really do love it, even if it has some poor timing.”

“That it does,” Minerva admitted while laughing.

One last thing Pit was able to remember from his dream popped into his head, something that someone had told him to do a long time ago. “When you brought everyone out of this room, did you keep them all in the same room or did they disperse?”

“I think they’re all in the same room still. Why do you ask?”

“I have something I want to tell everyone, a story I should have gotten off my chest a long time ago.”

The two walked out of the room, leaving the MP3 player on the bed, not noticing that the machine had moved onto the next song:”You Make My Dreams” by Hall and Oates.

 

_ What I want, you’ve got _

_ And it might be hard to handle _

_ Like a flame that burns a candle _

_ The candle feeds the flame _

_ Yeah yeah _

* * *

_ What I’ve got’s full stock _

_ Of thoughts and dreams that scatter _

_ Then you put ‘em all together _

_ And how, I can’t explain _

_ Oh yeah _

_ Well, well you _

_ You make my dreams come true _

Phoebe Young woke up with a start. She had the weirdest dream about meeting some dorky guy who thought he was an angel, and she fell in love with him. She… was happy. It was a weird sensation, considering how everyone had abandoned her. He made her a promise though, that he was going to find her and be there for her. So come on, angel boy, she’s waiting.

Phoebe got up from her bed, stretching a bit. The radio was playing ‘You Make My Dreams” by Hall and Oates. Good tune. She began to dance around her isolated “rubber room” (so-called because the walls were insulated with rubber, a protective measure against Phoebe’s electrical related powers) to the beat of the music, her short blonde hair bopping to the beat.

_ I’ _ _ m down on my daydream _

_ Oh that sleepwalk should be over by now _

_ I know _

_ Yeah you! _

_ You make my dreams come true _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow, this is a long one. 24 pages on Google Docs long. Long enough that it crashed the first tab long.
> 
> So, I had two major inspirations when writing this chapter: Batman The Animated Series' "Perchance to Dream" and Justice League's "For the Man Who Has Everything". I have always loved the idea of writing a story based on the idea of a hero being presented with a reality where everything they've ever wished for is true, and then having to decide between whether they want to stay in that reality or return to their old life. Fans of both episodes will recognize that I amalgamated certain elements of the respective realities into making mine, as well as layering it with the seeds of the Pit/Phosphora relationship.
> 
> I can't say when the next chapter will be out, but I will be trying to stick with the at least one a month quota I mentioned in the preface. I will tease the next story, though, by saying the N-Force gang is gonna "get physical, physical, they're gonna get physical, they'll get into physical"
> 
> Comments and Criticsim are welcome, as always!


	3. Lost Alien, Looks Like a Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of posters simply reading "Lost Alien, Looks Like a Girl" appear around New Athens, and a reporter takes it upon himself to investigate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this one is set way more in the future, but since the whole "Super Crown" thing is popular now, I felt I needed to do it now.
> 
> Biggest things needed to know: Lana is this universe's version of Princess Lana from Captain N, Samus is met at some point in the future (this being afterward), and Phoebe is the same one from the end of the last story. Other than that, the other thing to know is that Rogueport is essentially the Newark to New Athens' New York.
> 
> Also, special thanks to Tengosa for giving me the base idea for this, rather than the original crown story I was going to do.

My name is unimportant. I work for the Rogueport Direct Mail Service, and yes it’s got the bad reputation of being a rag that is only good for lining the spam folders of peoples emails, but look, we all gotta have an income somehow, right? Regardless, because of this, I’m constantly trying to keep an eye out on what the next big scoop would be. That is a much harder task than it used to be, what with all the stories about angels falling from the sky, people turning into eggplants, people shooting fire and ice from their hands. It’s a strange world.

That’s why I was especially intrigued when I came across this story: a bunch of posters had suddenly popped up all around reading simply “Lost Alien, Looks Like a Girl”. No more information other than that; no picture, no “If Found” information, nothing. Now, if it were a year ago I would have just wrote it off as nothing, but right now, aliens are the only thing that hasn’t been actually confirmed yet of existing, because it sure seems everything else does. Therefore, any potential alien thing could be a good scoop. What follows is a detailed account of everything I went through in the investigation of this potential big news drop.

So, where does one begin on the investigation of something that has very little to no information pertaining to it? Put your nose to the ground, and start asking around. Initial investigations proved rather fruitless, getting responses like:

 

**Person #1: No thank you I don’t want to buy anything right now.**

 

\--&\--

 

 **Person #2: What do I look like, some kinda paper expert, huh? How the hell** **should I know anything about that schlock?**

 

\--&\--

 

**Person #3: How the fuck did you get in my house?**

 

I swear it’s like people don’t even pay attention to what I was asking. Not a single person even mentioned the word alien to me after I asked them. Well, there was one person, but they then proceeded to ramble on about some kind of conspiracy about microfiches being implanted in people’s brains, which in any other instance would be a very intriguing story to look into, but the allure of extraterrestrials was too enticing. I ended up directing her to one of my colleagues over in the “Town Talk” section of the paper.

I did eventually end up finding someone who did know something, anything about it. It was a lady I met over in East Rogueport, outside the Pianta Parlor. She didn’t know anything about the papers, necessarily, but she did have another piece of information that was key.

 

 **Informant: Yeah, there was this angel guy, you know, the one that’s been** **showing up in all the news stories?**

 

**Myself: Yes, I have happened to hear a thing or two about him.**

 

 **I: Well, he came swooping down, asking everyone on the street if they had** **seen what he called an alien, but then proceeded to describe a girl.**

 

**M: How did he describe it?**

 

 **I: Eh, about yay high** [she held her hand up to about 4’6”] **, green hair, red** **eyes, fangs.**

 

 **M: Begging your pardon ma’am, but you did say that he was describing a** **girl? Are these descriptors part of what you think a normal girl looks** **like?**

 

 **I: Look, I don’t know, kids today have all the strangest trends, I thought it** **could be one of those strange fads. Besides, all the ads say that there’s a** **lost alien looking** **like a girl, can’t be too many of those around at one** **time.**

 

**M: Very well, what happened then?**

 

 **I: Well, I said I would keep an eye out, and then he flew off. He was** **muttering something, couldn’t really catch too much of it. I thought he** **said something about going** **over to the Adis Corporation building.**

 

**M: Thank you, ma’am. You’ve been very helpful.**

 

So it seemed that this scoop was wrapped up in all the happenings of the day as well. Hey, it’d be good business, all the people wanting to know about the latest doings involving the new superhero fad going around would eat issues about this up.

It was growing late by the time I had met with this informant, so I ended up having to push off a physical visit to the Adis Corp building until the next day. That didn’t mean, however, I couldn’t email the company, asking about any doings. They responded quickly and concisely:

 

**October 1st, 20XX**

 

 **Mr. XXXX** [I redacted my name to remain anonymous] **,**

 

**This is your final warning. We have told you multiple times to not continue contacting this company. If you do this again, we will be forced to take legal action against not only you but the paper you represent. I’m sure neither of us wishes for that. So please, cease and desist.**

 

**From the office of Hadrian Dolofonos**

**Written by Desmond Bloom**

 

Needless to say, I didn’t end up going to the building the next day. I have my connections though and sent an “agent” of mine to scout out the location instead. This was the report he sent back to me the next day.

 

**INITIAL RIDE BY PROVED INCONCLUSIVE.**

**NO GIRL OR ALIEN SIGHTED.**

**TOOK TWO COPIES OF DAILY SUN.**

**RETURN TRIP FAILED.**

**STOPPED BY GIANT TIRE.**

 

I guess this is what I get for putting my faith on information collection in a paperboy. So, I ended up going to the building anyway, to get any answers I could, legal threats be damned.

I was surprised to find that the posters about the lost alien were still up after my night in the slammer. Aside from a crick in my neck from sleeping on a hard surface, I had nothing. Perhaps this news story is gonna be a wash. Ah well, c’est la vie. I wonder if Town Life is gonna let me have that microfiche story back.

… Holy shit, as I’m typing that last paragraph, I just noticed the angel flying over my head. All hope is not lost for this story. If I can catch up to him, it could provide every answer I may have been searching for. The chase is on!

 

* * *

 

_Don’t believe I’m taken in by stories I have heard_

_I just read the daily news and swear by every word_

 

It had been about four days since the Baby Metroid had gone missing, and the search was running long hours. Barely any of the N-Force had gotten much sleep during the past few days, especially Samus, though she was used to going for a while without sleep anyways. As for the others, the search was running them a bit ragged. But this needed to be resolved, both for the world’s and Samus’ sakes. Plus, the music helped to keep people awake.

“Ooo, I like this one,” Lana commented about the current song. “You guys know it?” she asked, turning towards Kevin and Minerva, who were sitting next to her. The teams had split up into groups to increase the search capacity. Kevin, Lana, and Minerva were stationed back at Light Labs, monitoring a surveillance of the entire metropolitan area, looking for any blips of activity for the Metroid. Pit and Phoebe were off looking from the pedestrian level, whereas Sofia and Samus were piloting around the city in Samus’ ship (cloaked mode, of course, they didn’t want to startle people more than they already have been with the increased number of strange happenings over the few years).

Minerva simply shrugged, giving out a small yawn following it.

“I probably could identify it,” Kevin replied, “if I was running at full brain capacity. But I’m not at the moment, so I have no idea.”

Lana nodded and began reaching for the music player before Pit’s voice chirped over the interteam-communication line. “Barrytown, by Steely Dan.” In the time that Pit had the music player since receiving it as a gift, he had memorized practically every song on the device and could identify it within a few notes. Pit seemed to have an ability for memorizing things like that, they found.

“Thank you!” Lana answered, pulling out her phone. “Gonna add that on Spotify.”

“While people are looking at the playlist, what’s the next song up?” Samus added. “And I swear to God Kevin if you put on ‘Gary Come Home’ again Sof and I are going to punch you.”

“Repeatedly!” Sofia chimed in from the background.

“That was a one-time joke guys, come on,” Kevin rebutted.

“Yeah, a one time joke repeated 5 times,” Phoebe snarked.

“Admit it though, you laughed every time.”

“... fair enough.”

“Are we going to have to punch both of you?” Samus interjected.

“Ha, you’re not going to get close enough to me. Not unless you want an electric shock.”

“Well, I don’t know if you know this, but there’s this really fascinating invention, it’s called rubber, it protects people from electricity.”

“... Pitty they’re bullying me!” Phoebe jokingly whined. “Tell them to stop being meany heads!”

“No way!” excitedly called out over the line, causing everyone to burst out laughing.

“Blunt as ever,” Kevin mused, chuckling.

“Well, I guess it is true what they say:” Phoebe sighed. “Romance is indeed dead in the modern day.”

“No, no, it’s not that. I found the baby Metroid!”

“WHAT WHERE?!?” Samus frantically responded nearly immediately.

 

* * *

 

“In the middle of Jove Square Park. It’s, uh, eating the statue’s head.” Pit looked to the top of the statue of Zeus, where the green girl was nibbling away. He figured that while that crown could make appearances change, it didn’t change the overall mindset of the wearer. Therefore, natural inhibitions would still be present.

The angel didn’t hear an actual response from Samus, but he could hear what sounded to be a struggle between Samus and Sofia over the wheel of the ship (Sofia had taken the pilot position since she felt Samus was potentially too distraught to pilot accurately) followed by what sounded like them nearly crashing into a tree. Pit chuckled, he knew they’d be here shortly.

He turned his attention back to the Metroid, who seemed not to have a care in the world munching away on the statue head. Smiling, he happened to notice that, despite being in the middle of a very busy public park. A voice behind him spoke what he was thinking:

“You think that people have become so used to weirdness that they see a girl eating the top of a statue and don’t think twice about it?”

“Probably, Pheebs. I mean, hey, no one bats an eye when they see me flying around.”

Phoebe rested her head on Pit’s shoulder, looking up at the statue as well. “True that. So, we gonna go get it off, or we just going to sit here like dead fish?”

“I’m waiting for Samus, since she kind of is its mother, in a whole ‘Are You My Mommy’ sense.”

“Well, would that make you the father then? Since you and Samus were palling around in space for a while.”

“Nah, I’m more like its uncle.”

“Ooo, does that make me Aunt Phoebe?”

“I guess so!” Pit chuckled.

“Well, that is providing I ever get a chance to see the little guy, since the mother wants to punch me, and somebody said they wouldn’t protect me from that.”

“Wait what?”

“Do you not remember what just happened in the call?”

“Oh, I wasn’t really paying attention at that part. The Baby Metroid had taken my full attention at that point.” Phoebe turned her attention over to Pit with a look of incredulity. “What?”

Phoebe began bumping her head against his shoulder, in a mock banging her head against the wall motion. She eventually stopped, looking up at him and saying, “You’re lucky that you’re cute.”

The pair were interrupted by the arrival of Samus and Sofia, Samus running in front with Sofia trying to keep up behind her. Samus quickly looked to Pit and Phoebe, who pointed up to the top of the statue. She followed the direction of their pointing, and, upon seeing the Baby Metroid on the top of the statue, gasped and proceeded to march over to the base of the statue, yelling “Squishy! You get down from there right now!”

Sofia finally caught up with them, slightly out of breath due to the amount of running she just did on the little amount of sleep she had.

“Good to see you made it,” Pit remarked to his approaching friend.

“As am I,” Sofia said, panting.

“No crashing into trees on the way I hope?”

“Nearly no. Did scrape the top of a blue spruce.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Well, let’s just say she,” Sofia pointed to Samus, “is very worried about her Squishy.”

To prove the point, the three overheard Samus call up to the top of the statue, “Statues are not for eating! You’re going to break your teeth if you keep that up.”

The three turned back their attention to each other. “So,” Sofia asked, “any plans on how to get the crown off?”

Pit and Phoebe fell silent, in the entire search no one had thought about a plan to get the crown off of the Metroid. “Hopefully it’ll just fall off on its own?” Phoebe suggested.

“Not the best plan to go off of, but I’m too tired to think of any other,” Sofia agreed. So all they had to do was wait until the Metroid came down from the statue, which they hoped was soon.

Samus also wanted to make the Metroid come down soon, so she issued an ultimatum. “I’m gonna count to three, and you better be down here when I get to three. You don’t want me to get to three.” The girl had taken notice of Samus, and began smiling, but made no move to come down. “Alright, be that way. One… two…” Still no movement. “Three!” With cat-like reflexes, Samus leaped up onto the statue and began to scale the monument. The other three could only stand back in awe at the bounty hunter’s athletic and acrobatic abilities.

Samus had almost reached the top and reached out to grab the baby Metroid. It managed to avoid the grasping and jumped off behind her. As the baby fell, the crown on its head fell off, reverting it back to its normal, more alien form. There were only a few seconds to act. Pit and Phoebe looked at each other, knowingly.

“I got the baby,” Pit said.

“Leaves me with the crown.”

The two sped off, Pit quickly diving in front of the statue. The baby Metroid landed softly in his hands, just mere inches away from the pavement. A collective sigh of relief was issued by the entire N-Force team. Pit looked at the Metroid, which was chirping.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth at times, you know that right?”

Samus had climbed down from the statue by this point and stood next to Pit. “Nice catch,” she said, before taking the Baby Metroid off of him. Holding it in her hands and rubbing its head, she said, “Don’t scare Mommy like that again. She and her friends need their sleep too, she can’t be staying up worrying about you like that.” The Metroid made a small, almost apologetic, chirp in response. Samus nuzzled the little alien before it floated behind her and started gnawing on her ponytail.

Pit stood up and dusted himself off. “Thanks,” he said in response to Samus. He looked in the distance and saw that Phoebe had managed to grab the crown, which was rolling around for a bit.

She inspected the crown in her hand as she approached the group. “So this turns the wearer into pretty princesses, right? Wonder what would happen if I put it on, eh?”

As Phoebe handed the crown to Sofia, who stored it away, Pit answered. “Maybe the crown wouldn’t be able to make you any prettier and it would just self-destruct?”

Phoebe smiled and blushed. “Okay, you won back the boyfriend points you lost earlier on the call.”

“Well, if you two are done,” Sofia yawned, “I think it’s high time we headed home.” Leaning into Samus, she added, “I’m gonna get a good sleep after this.” Samus ruffled Sofia’s hair as the two of them, baby Metroid still attached to Samus’ hair, entered her ship.

Pit and Phoebe looked at each other for a second, before smiling and nodding. They began to head toward the ship when they were interrupted by the light of a camera flash going off. The two quickly turned around to see that some kind of newspaper guy was sitting in the bushes, having just taken a picture of them, presumably more.

Phoebe, looking annoyed, prepared a ball of electricity in her hands and lobbed it over towards the bushes. A loud “Bzzt” was heard, followed by the reporter calling out “Goddammit my computer’s fried! I lost everything!” Phoebe simply smiled before taking Pit’s arm and walking them towards Samus’ ship.

“You know, you didn’t have to destroy his computer, we could have just made him afraid to post it.”

“I know this kind of people though, they’re gonna stop at nothing to get a story. Easier to just destroy everything they had, that way they’re set back rather than just scared. Now come on,” she yawned, “I’m getting tired too, and you’re the comfiest pillow I can think of.”

Pit smiled and gave a small kiss on Phoebe’s forehead as the two walked into the ship. It took off soon, headed back for Light Laboratories, leaving the reporter, and his story about aliens in New Athens, far behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, special thanks to Tengosa for giving me the idea for this story.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed it, even though this is a day late from my one per month quota (rip me). But hey, at least I'm only one day late and not more. I hope to have more stories out soon.
> 
> Also, this was not the next story I was teasing in the end of the last, that one is still coming. I guess this is just going to be the place to tease a story coming up, not necessarily the next one though. So for this one, I will put:
> 
> "Great Tubba Blubba, eater of ghosts,  
> please do my bidding, whatever the costs"
> 
> Also, be on the lookout later today or tomorrow, because I may have some more short fiction in the N-Force canon to look forward too!
> 
> Comments and criticisms are appreciated, as always.


	4. Time Passages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The N-Force get caught in a situation from an early 90's comedy movie, as they face a villain that is able to rob over 100 stores in one day.

_ It was late in December, the sky turned to snow _

_ All around the day was going down slow _

_ Night like a river beginning to flow _

_ I felt the beat of my mind go drifting into _

 

_ Time Passages _

_ Years go falling in the fading light _

_ Time Passages _

_ Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight _

 

Kevin woke up to the smooth sounds of Al Stewart playing from the radio alarm clock. He looked next to him to find Lana also drifting awake. Placing a kiss on her forehead, he whispered, “Good morning, beautiful,”

“And good morning to you, handsome,” the girl responded, cuddling closer to him. “How’d you sleep?”

“As well as I always do with you.”

“Same here.” She moved to hold his face in her hands, smiling, before kissing him on the lips.

“Kevin, Lana!” Roll’s voice called out from beyond their door, “Breakfast is ready!”

“Alright, be out in a minute!” Kevin called out in response, before turning back to Lana. “Well, I guess we better get dressed, not keep them waiting too long.”

“Aww, can’t we just stay in bed a little bit longer, work up our appetites a bit?” Lana asked, tracing circles with her finger along Kevin’s chest.

“As much as I would love too, we don’t want someone coming to get us  _ in media res _ .”

Lana pouted. “Oh fine.”

The two quickly got dressed and headed out to the kitchen. They found Sofia and Samus already sitting at the table, Sofia working away at the daily crossword while Samus glanced through the rest of the newspaper. As Kevin and Lana approached, Samus looked up, saying “Morning!” before taking a sip of her coffee. Sofia didn’t even look up from the crossword, just simply waving.

Kevin and Lana each took a seat at the table, they both responded with their own “Morning!” Kevin looked around the table, noticing missing spots. “Where are Minerva and the speedsters?”

“Minerva’s still asleep,” Samus answered. “As for Pit and Phoebe, I honestly don’t know where they are.”

“We’re here,” a yawning voice said. Everyone turned to see that it was indeed Pit and Phoebe, though they both looked very tired and ragged, with Pit seemingly trying to stay awake.

“Jeezum crow, what happened to you to you two?” Lana asked.

“Late night,” Phoebe answered.”Got barely any sleep.”

“Is that why Minerva’s still asleep.”

“Something like that.” Phoebe yawned again, sitting down. Pit sat down next to her and immediately laid his head on her shoulder, still struggling to keep awake.

It was at this point that Rock and Roll emerged from the kitchen, carrying several plates of food, and placed one in front of everyone.”Bon appetite!” Roll wished upon the team.

As the team ate away, the day’s business came up. Namely, the random crime of the day. Samus and Sofia happened to hear over the CB radio that police had reported a series of robberies, in broad daylight, happening in 10 neighboring stores over the course of an hour or so. That was weird enough on its own, but added to the this was the weirdness that none of the police wanted to have anything to do with this.

“So they all just noped out of there?” Kevin questioned.

“Supposedly, yes,” Samus confirmed. “At least that’s what they sounded like they were doing.”

“What could have gotten all those cops so spooked?” wondered Lana.

“Something they are ill-prepared for, my guess.”

“So right up our alley then?” Kevin smirked.

“Exactly.”

“Alright, let’s boogie then! All 6 of us?”

“I think it’s only going to be 4.” Lana corrected, pointing over to Phoebe and Pit. The two of them were leaning on each other, fast asleep, not having even touched the food in front of them.

“You’re probably right,” Kevin confirmed, standing up from the table. “Hey, now we don’t have to worry about trying to keep up with those two!” Lana and Samus followed, but Sofia was still fixed on her crossword puzzle. “You coming Soph?” Kevin asked.

“Hold on a second,” responded, frantically scribbling some last words in. “Okay, done!” She dropped the pen and stood up. “Let’s go.”

As the team prepared to go, Samus looked at her watch, saying, “Fifteen minutes for a weekend crossword, you’re getting good!”

“Thank you! I’m gonna break the record next time, I swear it.”

 

* * *

 

The tea m arrived at the supposed street to find it like a ghost town. Not a single person was around, and those that were were running from the area as fast as they could. There wasn’t a single police car in the area, confirming the idea that the cops really did all turn and run.

“Well, I guess this is the place,” Kevin reckoned, stepping out of the van, followed by the others.

“Whatever has the cops spooked must have everyone spooked,” Lana remarked. “I mean, look at this place. It’s a Saturday, this place should be filled!”

“Something is wrong here,” Sofia commented.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock. We can all see that.” Kevin replied.

“No, idiot. Not like that. If there was a threat that caused people to go into a state of panic like this has, you’d think there would be some evidence of physical damage, or dead or injured people, or something! But there’s nothing!”

Samus poked her head into one of the empty stores. There was a cashier by the door. The other team members couldn’t hear the conversation, but Samus shortly reemerged from the store. “He was through here. Headed down the street that way.”

“How are we gonna tell where this dude is even?” Kevin wondered.

“Follow the trail of empty stores. If we reach an untouched store, we’ve gone too far.”

They proceeded to do just that. They made their way down the street, growing increasingly bewildered as the number of stores increased from 10 to 2, to 30, to 45. By the time they reached the 50th store, Kevin had to comment. “Jesus Christ this guy is prolific.”

Fortunately, it was store number 52 where they finally caught up with the thief, though they didn’t really realize it at the time. All they saw was a flurry of clothes flying out the front of the store, and they figured that something had to be going on in there. Kevin approached the door and opened his mouth to say something, but he got pelted in the face by a shirt, getting knocked to the ground.

He removed the shirt off of his face, and moved to get up, but stopped when he found himself face to face with a giant stopwatch. “What the” was all he could manage to get out before a giant flash of light blinded his vision and

 

* * *

 

_ It was late in December, the sky turned to snow _

_ All around the day was going down slow _

_ Night like a river beginning to flow _

_ I felt the beat of my mind go drifting into _

 

_ Time Passages _

_ Years go falling in the fading light _

_ Time Passages _

_ Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight _

 

Kevin woke up to the smooth sounds of Al Stewart playing from the radio alarm clock. He looked next to him to find Lana also drifting awake. Placing a kiss on her forehead, he whispered, “Good morning, beautiful,”

“And good morning to you, handsome,” the girl responded, cuddling closer to him. “How’d you sleep?”

“As well as I always do with you.”

“Same here.” She moved to hold his face in her hands, smiling, before kissing him on the lips. “I had a strange dream though.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it had us going through a day as we normally do, going out to stop a bad guy and all. But as soon as we arrived at the crime scene, poof! I wake up.”

“Huh, that’s weird. I had the exact same dream.”

“Really? Maybe we’re the perfect match for each other then, if we even have the same dreams.”

“Maybe!” Kevin chuckled, before kissing Lana on the lips again.

“Kevin, Lana!” Roll’s voice called out from beyond their door, “Breakfast is ready!”

“Alright, be out in a minute!” Kevin called out in response, before turning back to Lana. “Well, I guess we better get dressed, not keep them waiting too long.”

“Aww, can’t we just stay in bed a little bit longer, work up our appetites a bit?” Lana asked, tracing circles with her finger along Kevin’s chest.

“As much as I would love too, we don’t want someone coming to get us  _ in media res _ .”

Lana pouted. “Oh fine.”

The two quickly got dressed and headed out to the kitchen. They found Sofia and Samus already sitting at the table, Sofia working away at the daily crossword while Samus glanced through the rest of the newspaper. As Kevin and Lana approached, Samus looked up, saying “Morning!” before taking a sip of her coffee. Sofia didn’t even look up from the crossword, just simply waving.

Kevin and Lana each took a seat at the table, they both responded with their own “Morning!” Kevin looked around the table, noticing missing spots. “Where are Minerva and the speedsters?”

“Minerva’s still asleep,” Samus answered. “As for Pit and Phoebe, I honestly don’t know where they are.”

“We’re here,” a yawning voice said. Everyone turned to see that it was indeed Pit and Phoebe, though they both looked very tired and ragged, with Pit seemingly trying to stay awake.

“Jeezum crow, what happened to you to you two?” Lana asked.

“Late night,” Phoebe answered.”Got barely any sleep.”

“Is that why Minerva’s still asleep.”

“Something like that.” Phoebe yawned again, sitting down. Pit sat down next to her and immediately laid his head on her shoulder, still struggling to keep awake.

It was at this point that Rock and Roll emerged from the kitchen, carrying several plates of food, and placed one in front of everyone.”Bon appetite!” Roll wished upon the team. Kevin took a sip of his coffee and realized that this was all seeming very familiar, but he couldn’t figure out the connection.

As the team ate away, the day’s business came up. Namely, the random crime of the day. Samus and Sofia happened to hear over the CB radio that police had reported a series of robberies, in broad daylight, happening in 10 neighboring stores over the course of an hour or so. That was weird enough on its own, but added to the this was the weirdness that none of the police wanted to have anything to do with this.

“So they all just noped out of there?” Kevin questioned.

“Supposedly, yes,” Samus confirmed. “At least that’s what they sounded like they were doing.”

“What could have gotten all those cops so spooked?” wondered Lana.

“Something they are ill-prepared for, my guess.”

“So right up our alley then?” Kevin smirked.

“Exactly.”

“Alright, let’s boogie then! All 6 of us?”

“I think it’s only going to be 4.” Lana corrected, pointing over to Phoebe and Pit. The two of them were leaning on each other, fast asleep, not having even touched the food in front of them.

“You’re probably right,” Kevin confirmed, standing up from the table. “Hey, now we don’t have to worry about trying to keep up with those two!” Lana and Samus followed, but Sofia was still fixed on her crossword puzzle. “You coming Soph?” Kevin asked.

“Hold on a second,” responded, frantically scribbling some last words in. “Okay, done!” She dropped the pen and stood up. “Let’s go.”

As the team prepared to go, Samus looked at her watch, saying, “... thirteen minutes. Impressive.”

“Eh, not as much when I feel like I’ve done that puzzle before.”

 

* * *

 

The team arrived at the supposed street to find it like a ghost town. Not a single person was around, and those that were were running from the area as fast as they could. There wasn’t a single police car in the area, confirming the idea that the cops really did all turn and run.

“Well, I guess this is the place,” Kevin reckoned, stepping out of the van, followed by the others.

“Whatever has the cops spooked must have everyone spooked,” Lana remarked. “I mean, look at this place. It’s a Saturday, this place should be filled!”

“Something is wrong here,” Sofia commented.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock. We can all see that.” Kevin replied.

“No, idiot. Not like that. If there was a threat that caused people to go into a state of panic like this has, you’d think there would be some evidence of physical damage, or dead or injured people, or something! But there’s nothing!”

Samus poked her head into one of the empty stores. There was a cashier by the door. The other team members couldn’t hear the conversation, but Samus shortly reemerged from the store. “He was through here. Headed down the street that way.”

“How are we gonna tell where this dude is even?” Kevin wondered.

“Follow the trail of empty stores. If we reach an untouched store, we’ve gone too far.”

They proceeded to do just that. They made their way down the street, growing increasingly bewildered as the number of stores increased from 10 to 2, to 30, to 45. By the time they reached the 50th store, Kevin had to comment. “Jesus Christ this guy is prolific.”

Fortunately, it was store number 52 where they finally caught up with the thief, though they didn’t really realize it at the time. All they saw was a flurry of clothes flying out the front of the store, and they figured that something had to be going on in there. Kevin approached the door and opened his mouth to say something, but he got pelted in the face by a shirt, getting knocked to the ground.

He removed the shirt off of his face, and moved to get up, but stopped when he found himself face to face with a giant stopwatch. Kevin suddenly had a realization, but “Wait a minu” was all he could manage to get out before a giant flash of light blinded his vision and

 

* * *

 

_ It was late in December, the sky turned to snow _

_ All around the day was going down slow _

_ Night like a river beginning to flow _

_ I felt the beat of my mind go drifting into _

 

_ Time Passages _

_ Years go falling in the fading light _

_ Time Passages _

_ Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight _

 

Kevin and Lana both shot straight up, way more awake than before. They turned towards each other, and the look in their eyes confirmed they were both thinking the same thing: “That wasn’t a dream.”

At that moment, a knock came on the door, followed by Samus’ voice calling out: “Are you two up and/or decent?”

“Up? Yes. Decent? Debatable,” Kevin responded.

“Get dressed, and meet us in the library, Sofia thinks she knows what the cause of all this is.”

“Wait, you guys are experiencing it too? The whole deja vu thing?”

“Well, if Sofia’s correct, it’s not actually deja vu, but for all intents and purposes, for now, the answer is yes.” With that, Samus walked away, headed back towards the library.

Kevin and Lana looked back at each other. “Definitely no ‘working up out appetite’ this time around,” Kevin joked.

“Agreed,” Lana replied. A simple kiss on the lips sufficed, and the two set about getting dressed and meeting with the other two.

 

* * *

 

“Where the hell is it?” Sofia jumped from bookshelf to bookshelf, searching for a certain book, as the other three watched.

“I’m honestly more surprised you don’t end up looking for things more often like this,” Kevin quipped, “considering how messy your living space usually is.”

“That’s an organized chaos,” Sofia called back, “I can tell where everything is in that still. This is just abnormal. Aha! Found it!” Sofia grabbed the bounty she sought, and slid down the ladder, leafing through the pages of the book until she found what she was looking for. It was an old book, from at least the early 20th century, and was about the size of a tome. Setting the book down open on the table, she exclaimed, “That’s the rascal who’s behind this.” The other three glanced at the page. There was a drawing of a bunny in a waistcoat and top hat with a giant stopwatch in the middle of the page, with the title up at the top reading “Chronomage.”

“Aww, he’s a cute little thing,” Lana gushed.

“Appearances can be deceiving. He’s quite mischievous in reality.”

“He looks like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland,” Kevin noted. 

“Where do you think Lewis Carrol got the idea from?” Sofia explained, “As his name implies, he has distinct mastery over the manipulation of time. That’s what was happening to us. We weren’t having deja vu, we were being sent back in time to relive the same few hours over and over again.”

“Indefinitely?”

“Well, only if we keep running into him and he uses his magic on us again.”

A lightbulb went off in Lana’s head. “Wait, that may be why no one wanted to go near this guy, because they didn’t want to get stuck in time loops again!”

Samus concurred, “That makes sense. Soph, have you ever fought him before in your dealings with the supernatural?”

“No, I’d only heard rumors about him, I never had seen him in reality before.”

“Did these rumors include information about how to stop him?”

“No. Well, yes and no. Yes because technically they did, but no because they were only guesses. Some say to use the power of Galamoth, some say using the power of Zeyphr, neither of those have been tested to success though. Other guesses exist, but the one thing that remains in all supposed methods is the fact that they all involve reflecting his own power back at him.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” Kevin questioned. “It’s not like we have some anti-time magic on our hands or anything like that!”

“Wait,” Lana remembered, “wasn’t there, like, a bright flash whenever he used his magic?”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“Well, what if the magic could be reflected by the same things that light can? We could try, like, bringing a mirror, and seeing if the time magic bounces off that!”

Sofia thought about that for a minute. “You know, that might actually work. Time magic is a very old and powerful magic, barely anyone now understands how it works. With a magic that old, it would make sense that it would have its bases in something as elementally basic as light.”

“It’s worth a try at least once,” Kevin admitted. “Come on, let’s kick some rabbit butt.”

 

* * *

 

_ It was late in December, the sky turned to snow _

 

“I swear, if I have to hear this song one more time, I am going to throw this clock out the window,” Kevin threatened, irritated.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be helping you,” Lana replied, equally irritated.

By now they were on the 15th loop of waking up, trying to fight the Chronomage, and failing. Samus didn’t even need to come to their door anymore, the two of them were already getting dressed and making their way to the library.

“What the hell do we do now? We’ve tried practically everything: mirrors, water, metal surfaces, trapping it, distracting it, nothing is working!” Lana cried exasperatedly.

Samus turned back to Sofia. “Soph, is there any other methods that we haven’t tried yet?”

“Not unless you know where Galamoth or Zephyr are, and I don’t even know that. I’m sure as hell they’re not here though.”

“Well, we can’t give up. We can’t just let this rabbit get away with all this loot.”

“Wait a minute!” exclaimed Kevin, “I just thought of something. He’s gotta have a place to store all of this loot right? A home base of sorts?”

“Makes sense.”

“It’s probably where he feels the safest too, if he willingly stores all of his stealings there.”

“Also makes sense.”

“Why don’t we try and find this place, and then when he’s least expecting it, we surprise attack him?”

“Still have the problem with the watch though,” Lana reminded him.

“Right.”

Sofia had a realization. “You know what, for once, Kevin might actually be on to something.”

“Hey, what do you mean ‘for once?’” 

Sofia continued, “If the Chronomage’s cache is where he considers himself the safest, then he may part with the watch in the confines of this safe haven. If we can get the watch separate from him, and get it before he can, he theoretically would be powerless!”

“Alright!” Lana cheered. “Let’s take this rabbit down once and for all, so we can finally stop repeating the same few hours over again. Now, how are we going to find this cache.”

“Simple. We do what Alice did: follow the White Rabbit.”

 

* * *

 

And follow they did. Instead of rushing straight in to confront the Chronomage with whatever tool they were happening to use in this iteration of the time loop, they waited back, letting the Chronomage do his thing. The total number of stores that he hit by the time he was done totaled over 100. But, as all things must come to an end, so too did the Chronomage’s little “shopping spree”. He hopped off at its conclusion, with the N-Force in close pursuit chasing the “White Rabbit.” 

But unlike Alice, instead of being led by the rabbit to Wonderland, they were lead to the Chronomage’s hidden cache (which, funnily enough, was also located underneath a tree). It was north of New Athens, somewhere in southern Empire, on the far-off reaches of a piece of farmland.

“I guess Farmer McGregor is sleeping on the job,” quipped Kevin, “if his rabbit is running a criminal empire.”

Sofia rolled her eyes, before turning to Samus. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

“I know the plan, it’s going to go great.”

“I know, just say it again, for my sake.”

Samus smiled a half smile and replied. “Okay. I morph ball into the burrow, locate the watch, bring the watch back out, do not engage him. Then, we wait for him to realize the watch is gone, and emerge, at which point we capture him.”

Sofia sighed, trying to remain calm. “Good. Okay. Good luck.” She leaned in whispered something to Samus, which sounded like “Warning: Kiss Incoming.” Samus nodded, and Sofia gave her a peck on the cheek, before pulling back.

“Alright,” Samus said, standing up and putting on her helmet, “see you on the flipside.” Samus crouched, her power suit morphing into a ball shape as she rolled out the door and into the burrow.

Once the three saw that Samus was completely inside, they switched on the intercom link.

“Okay,” Sofia called out, “What can you see?”

 

* * *

 

“Not a lot, all things considered. It’s quite dark in here.”

Samus popped out of ball form, finding that the cavern was big enough for a person to walk upright through. Turning on her night vision, she proceeded through the caves.

“Why are these tunnels human-sized, do you think? I mean it’s a rabbit after all.”

“Sofia,” Lana chirped over the line, “Did any of your knowledge say anything about it being a human, or having a human form?”

“Not that I know of. I mean, is it possible, sure, but I would think there would be a record of it somewhere.”

By this point, Samus had found herself in a room which appeared to be a study of some sort. She approached the desk and reported her findings. “This desk might be where it is, thinking about where I would hide a watch.” Atop the desk, there was a book, which she opened and skimmed through. “I found a log of some sort. ‘5/8, 102 hits. 3/9, 107 hits. 8/10. 116 hits.”

“So he seems to be doing these robbing sprees about once a month or so,” Sofia figured.

“Imagine the giant pile of loot he’s got,” Kevin stated.

“It would dwarf an amount like Smaug’s,” Lana added, “no pun intended.”

Samus put the log down and began to check the drawers, breaking open the locked ones. “Jackpot,” she eventually said, “I found the watch.”

“Excellent! Now head back up, asap.”

Samus pulled out the watch, surprised at its size, being roughly the size of her hand. “How was a small little bunny able to hold something like this?”

“Who the hell are you?” a voice sounded off behind her.

Samus turned around and was surprised at the sight she saw. “Uh, what was that again about it not having a human form?”

Sure enough, there was a scraggly looking man standing in the doorway. “Wait a minute, you’re from earlier, I had to bat off you and your friends way too many times.”

“So you are the Chronomage then,” Samus confirmed.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I was just given this watch by this British dude, and suddenly I could get whatever I wanted.”

“That confirms it,” Sofia stated, “the watch is the source of his power. Get it the hell out of there right now!”

Samus smirked and called out to the Chronomage, “So you want this watch then?”

“Yes, and then you’re going to go back to do another time around. Hopefully, you’ll learn the lesson this time.”

“Well, you need to catch me first.” Samus jumped into the air, morphing into the ball mid-air, and speeding between the man’s legs. By the time the man was able to give chase, Samus was already up through the small rabbit-sized entrance.

 

* * *

 

Samus popped out of the hole, and the other N-Force members quickly raced out to her. Samus tossed the watch into a containment unit held by Sofia. “That should be a good addition to the Lunar Sanctum’s collection.” She then turned to Lana and said, “He’s gonna reach out of that hole in a few seconds, I don’t think he’ll be able to get out though, so he’s all yours.”

As if on cue, the Chronomage’s hand popped out of the hole, grasping around for anything to get a hold of. Lana, quick as lightning slapped a handcuff around the one hand. “Hey Soph, you still carry around stakes with you right?” Sofia nodded and tossed a wooden stake over to Lana. She stabbed it into the ground and slapped the other end of the handcuff around it. “Now he ain’t going anywhere for sure.”

Kevin leaned down and looked at the Chronomage, and with the full confidence of a cop show protagonist, said: “It looks like your time is up.” He looked over to Lana, as a means of approval of the one-liner.

“A solid 3, you could have done better.”

“Oh really, what would be the better line now?”

“I never said I could do better, I only said you could.”

“Can’t even get support from my own girlfriend. Alright, I see how it is. I’ll just go call the police, at least they’ll appreciate me.”

“Aww, no I appreciate you,” Lana cried, clinging to her boyfriend and giving a kiss on his cheek.

The team soon piled back into the van, leaving the now powerless Chronomage to his fate with the penal system.

 

* * *

 

“Ugh, it’s finally nice to be able to live through the hours after 10 am,” Lana said, stretching.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Kevin agreed.

Upon their return to Light Labs, Samus and Sofia decided to spend the next few hours catching up on the sleep they had lost during the 16 time-loops. Kevin and Lana had considered doing that as well, but instead decided to spend the time doing other activities, such as “work up their appetites.” At this point, however, their appetites were worked up to the point that they actually did go eat, and had made their way to the kitchen, where they found that Pit and Phoebe had woken up, though had remained at the table.

“Hey, how are you guys doing?” Kevin asked of the two. “You two seemed super tired before.”

“Oh, we definitely were,” Phoebe clarified. “But we’re all caught up now, so it’s all good.”

“Oh yeah,” Pit remembered. “I’m glad we ran into you while I still remembered. While we were out, we stopped at a record store, and I saw a record I thought you two might like.”

“Oh, that’s really nice Pit! Thank you!” Lana smiled. “What record did you get?” Pit pulled out the record, and Kevin and Lana’s faces fell when they saw it: “Time Passages… by Al Stewart.” Wordlessly, the Kevin and Lana stood up and walked towards their bedroom.

“Uh, guys,” Pit asked, “Where are you going?”

“Keeping a promise we made earlier,” they said in unison.

A short while later, the distinct sound of a radio clock being thrown out of the window could be heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, two Gaiden stories in a month, that's crazy! I hope to make it the norm where I release them every 10 days or so now on forward, so look forward to that!
> 
> This was a fun story to write, mostly because of the Groundhog Day aspect of it, but also because I've wanted to use the Chronomage in some form ever since I played Aria of Sorrow, it's just such a cool idea for an enemy (even though he's more of just as stage hazard in the actual game. Also, I decided to leave out Pit and Phoebe, because I feel like I've been giving them a bit too much spotlight in these Gaiden stories, and not enough to Kevin and Lana, so this is for them.
> 
> A teaser for a potential upcoming story is the song "Learning to Fly", by Pink Floyd.
> 
> Comments and criticisms are welcome as always!


	5. Confessions of a Nature Goddess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viridi recounts the events of her and Pit's knowing each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this technically takes place during the events of Chapter 9 of the main storyline, with flashbacks to events that happened way before the rest of the series. The fact that it happens while Pit is still unconscious/ in the past helps explain why there's a bit of romance here that involves Pit with someone other than Phoebe, since he didn't know Phoebe existed at this point.

“I want it to be on record that I was the first one to advise Palutena against taking in Pit. And, as it turns out, my advisement would have been the smarter option in the long run. A lot of events that had come about afterward could have been avoided, not to mention it would have been a lot less of a hassle.

That being said, however, I can’t help but have a soft spot for the angel. I don’t know why, honestly. Maybe his eternal optimism got to me. Maybe it’s just my nature of being the goddess of practically life itself to care for all living creatures. Whatever the reason though, I do care for Pit … even love him, though I would never say it to his face now.

There’s a reason why I’m talking about this now. Something’s amiss here in Skyworld. Palutena just, essentially, kicked Pit out, for seemingly no reason. This is something that she would  _ never _ do, so I know something’s up. Just last night Pit and two humans gave me another human, one in the middle of becoming an angel, to heal and protect, so maybe it has something to do with that, but Palutena was always the one to care for humans more, so she wouldn’t have objected to taking care of an injured one.

So this record is for Pit, if it is you that ends up viewing this. If not, please get it to him. I don’t know what happens when an angel gets exiled like that, but in the event of memory loss, this can be a way of helping you remember, hopefully.

… okay, let’s start from the beginning…”

 

* * *

 

It had been a beautiful morning in the town of Drosia, around three months after the war began. By noon, however, the skies had blackened from the smoke of the fires which now consumed the town, what hadn’t been already destroyed, that is. The town had been the target of the day for the Underworld Army, and the means of destruction was the Hewdraw, a titanous serpentine dragon. A combined effort of Palutena’s Army and The Forces of Nature had driven the Hewdraw out of the city, and Palutena and Viridi, the two goddesses in charge of the armies, were doing a sweep of the city for survivors. Thus far they had no luck.

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this Palutena,” the goddess of nature, clothed in a set of armor that appeared to be made of wood bark, stated. “We’re pushing back the Underworld Army, the lives of the humans don’t matter, they cause as much destruction as the Underworld Army does.”

“You purpote yourself as the goddess of nature, and you wish to protect every life, except if its human life,” said the goddess of light, clad in a set of iron armor and a matching helmet. “Don’t you feel that it’s a bit hypocritical Viridi?”

“Look, humans  _ were  _ a part of nature once. But they made themselves unnatural! No other creature on this Earth consumes resources as quickly but replaces it so slowly!”

“All I’m saying is, if there were no humans, what would we be fighting for here?”

“The planet! Duh.”

Before Palutena could respond, the two goddesses heard a sob being emitted nearby. The two rushed over towards the source. It came from a very young boy, with messy brown hair and blue eyes. He cried out “Mama? Mama?”

Palutena ran over to him and knelt in front of the small child. There was something familiar about him, as if she had seen him before. “Hello. I’m Palutena, this is Viridi. Can you tell us your name?”

“Mama? Where Mama?” the boy cried.

“Aww, don’t cry. It’s gonna be okay. We’ll find your mother.”

The young boy buried his head in Palutena’s shoulder, sobbing. “Want Mama!” Palutena comforted the young boy by patting his back.

“It’s going to be okay. What’s your name?”

Mixed with being muffled by the shoulder, the sobbing, and struggling to pronounce his name with his young vocal abilities, the boy only managed to mutter “...Pit…”

“Pit, huh? That’s a nice name.”

“Want Mama.”

“I know. I know. We’ll find her.”

Viridi leaned down to Palutena’s ear and whispered, “You do realize there’s a very high chance that this boy’s mother is dead, right?”

“I’m well aware Viridi.”

“And what will you do if she is? What if he’s the only survivor?”

“Then I’ll take care of him.”

“... Palutena you can’t be serious. Need I remind you there is a war going on? Not to mention that a human can’t be raised by a goddess!”

“He won’t be human, I’d make him an angel.”

“AN ANGEL? … You’d never hear me say this again, but you can’t send a two-year-old to be a commander! Especially not a human two-year-old!”

“He won’t be a commander. He’d be my right-hand man.”

“He’s two.”

“He won’t be forever though. He could be a symbol, for the hope that we’ll survive this war.”

“I hope you don’t plan to make a habit out of this?”

“No, just him. He’ll be a guardian, a protector, my Pit, my angel of light.”

Palutena stood up, extending her hand to the young child. “Come on Pit, let’s go find your mother.” Pit, still crying, wiped a tear from his eye and took the goddess’ hand, hesitantly. The two of them proceeded down the street, Viridi looking on.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Viridi muttered, before catching up with the goddess of light and the little boy.

 

* * *

 

“Needless to say, we didn’t end up finding your mother. So Palutena went through with the whole ‘taking you in’ plan, even though I once again advised against it both before and while we were back in Skyworld.

‘Oh, just give it a bit,’ she said, ‘you’ll come to like Pit, I know it.’ I, of course, didn’t believe her, a human is a human after all. But, sure enough, I did start to take a like to you. What can I say? You were a cute kid.

Palutena and I had worked out something of a system. Since we still had the war on the surface to contend with, until such an age you were able to help in that effort, she and I would switch off babysitting duty, while the other worked on the war effort. There were days where both of us were needed, in that case, we would leave you in Cragalanche’s capable hands, but those days were few and far between. The opposite, being neither Palutena nor I were needed, were also few and far between, but were considerably more enjoyable.”

 

* * *

 

It was a quiet day on the battlefield, so Palutena and Viridi decided to enjoy it by relaxing in Viridi’s Sanctuary. It served a double purpose; besides getting the chance to spend a day in the beauty of nature, but it also meant that the two goddesses were in close proximity to each other, meaning that they could jump into action at a moment’s notice easily.

Since it didn’t make sense to leave Pit by his lonesome, he tagged along to the Sanctuary too. He was currently having fun, running around the trees and splashing in the pond. The two goddesses sat off to the side, relaxing in the sun, watching the young angel.

“So, Thanatos is in charge of the army in the Steppes, right?” Palutena asked.

“Right,” Viridi confirmed. “So we may be able to outflank him, get him from behind.”

“Hmm, I dunno.”

“Why not?”

“I’m still concerned about Medusa, she hasn’t shown her head in a few weeks, wouldn’t you think she’d be popping back up sometime soon, maybe even regrouping with Thanatos in the Steppes?”

“Possible, but I don’t think so. She’s still recoiling from her loss in Britagne. It’s going to take her a while to amass an army of that size again.”

“Fair. Still, it’d be better to be safe than sorry.”

“Lady Palutena! Lady Viridi!” The two goddesses turned to see the approaching angel. He was holding something in his hands. “Look at this cool bug I found!”

“Ick, no thank you!” Palutena refused, making a silly disgusted face that made Pit laugh.

“Here,” Viridi said, patting the ground next to her, “Let me see it.” Pit sat down next to her and slid the insect into her open hands. It was a brown beetle-like creature. She smiled, held the beetle close to Pit’s face, and explained: “Now, this is what’s called a doodlebug. When it’s startled, it releases a small burst of gas from its body!”

“Like a fart?” Pit said curiously.

“In a sense, yeah, it’s like a defensive fart.” Pit giggled at that, even more so when just seconds later the doodlebug made a small “toot” noise, releasing some of the said gas. “This gas is actually poisonous,” Viridi continued, “though not at the levels there are now. If that was the case, we’d be dead already. But, it’s all proportional. If we were the size of drachmae, for example, that could kill us. But since we’re big, it’s no more harmful than a rotten egg is to our smell.”

Pit’s eyes widened. “Woah, cool! Lady Viridi, can I bring you more bugs and you can tell me about them?”

“Sure thing, kid.”

“Alright! I’ll do that right now!” 

And with that, the angel was off. Viridi watched him go, smiling, before letting the doodlebug back into the grass and turning back to Palutena, who had a smirk on her face. “What?”

“See, I told you you were gonna like him eventually.”

“Alright, fine, you were right this one time. What can I say, I don’t get someone who has an interest in nature that often, I get to talk about something I love with someone who wants to listen.”

“I’m sure that in the coming years, you two will become like best friends.”

Viridi laughed. “Okay, I let you have one time being right, you don’t get another.”

 

* * *

 

“She was right yet again. Over the years, we did become really close friends, mostly because you remained the same loveable dork that wanted to show me a cool bug. 

As you got older, and you started your preparations for the time on the battlefield, you started to become more distant, less available. I just chalked it up to being engrossed in your studies. But by the time you were on the battlefield, and I was hearing stories from the battles, I realized there was something more there. You were different. You seemed bloodthirsty, an expert killer, a-”

“Viridi we need to speak with you!” A male voice rang throughout the Sanctuary. Viridi recognized it as the boy that Pit had brought the night before.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, before rolling up the parchment and placing it in the branches of a tree. She walked over to the pool and looked in, where she saw that it wasn’t just the boy from earlier, but also the girl as well. Obviously, they were there to talk about Pit, perhaps they had found him crash-landed on Earth, or something like that. Thinking quick, she mussed up her hair to make it look like she was just sleeping, and prepared to answer.

“Wait, Pit mentioned he was the servant of the goddess of light!” the male voice said, “Maybe we can try her?”

“Yes, go bother Palutena and let me be!” The goddess called out, “Though she may not be in the best of moods either.”

The two humans were startled, before the male voice responded, “Viridi! You were here listening to us this entire time?”

“For a while yes. You interrupted my mid-morning nap. Leave so I can return to it.”

“We need to talk though!”

“So I’ve heard. Look, if you’re wondering about your little ex-human in my care, it’s gonna take a while. I’m a goddess, not some miracle worker.”

A blank expression erupted on the boy’s face. “Wait, aren’t gods miracl-”

“Don’t think about it too much,” the girl interrupted.

“Unless you’re here to talk about the other angel in our mutual relations,” Viridi qualified.

“You know what happened to Pit?”

“Of course I do! It was almost an unavoidable mess up here.”

“What exactly did happen? We’ve only seen the aftermath.”

“I’m only knowledgeable on the very base details myself. Pit left here and went back to Palutena’s Temple. A few minutes later I saw him falling in a fireball. I rushed over to Palutena’s Temple and asked her about it. Not because I care or anything, mind you, it just seemed very… wrong. She refused to speak about it, saying ‘He disobeyed me. I punished him. That’s all there is to it.’ I can only assume she meant about the going to Earth, but I know her. If Pit really wanted to go to Earth, she’d relent immediately, she’d even cover for him. She cares about the little doofus, for whatever reason. She wouldn’t burn him up for something like this, that’s for sure.”

“So do you think something happened to change their dynamic?”

“I think something happened to change her… wait, hold on a second.” Viridi stepped away from the pool, reaching up into the branches of another tree. She pulled out another scroll, this one being an itemized list of all the items listed as missing after the Underworld Army. Her face dropped as she reached a certain item that confirmed her suspicions: one Chaos Kin was missing. She returned to the pool, worried expression on her face. “If what I think has happened has happened, we have a very big problem on our hands.”

“What do you think happened?”

“No offense, but I don’t want to trust it to some humans, not until Pit is around.”

“That’s part of why we came. Pit is in a bad shape.”

“I can imagine.”

“Can you do anything to help him heal?”

“Unfortunately, no. Even if I wasn’t saddled with already healing one angel, bringing Pit under my care could incur the wrath of Palutena, which if I’m right could be a very bad thing, and might make it so you’d have to be battling with two goddesses, myself being one.”

“That wouldn’t be good.”

“Precisely.”

“Then what can we do?”

“Well, I say hope that Pit heals quickly. In the meantime though, you two are heroes, I’m sure you’ll find something to do. You humans do have an odd fascination with rule breaking.”

“Says the goddess that had her rock person on Earth.”

“Watch it. We may be allies, but don’t think I won’t hesitate to drop a Reset Bomb on your pathetic heads.”

“What’s a Reset Bomb?”

“Goodbye. I’m going back to my nap.” With that, Viridi swirled the vision of them away, ending the call. She returned to the scroll with the record for Pit and began speaking again. “Sorry about that, your friends wanted to talk. Where was I? Oh yeah, how the war had changed you. Well, I think its probably best explained by me just talking about our first meeting on the battlefield.

It was about a year after you had taken charge of Palutena’s Army. We were in Africa, having chased Pandora’s troop into the Sahara Desert. The human forces we were allied with had formed a barricade on the Northern coast of Africa, so there was no opportunity for Pandora to escape. Our armies were to meet up in the area which would later be known as Timbuktu.

 

* * *

 

Viridi had asked around among the amalgamation of angels and humans as to the whereabouts of the commander’s tent. They all pointed up to a lone tent atop a hill, its vantage point perfect for watching over all the other tents, who were situated in a valley beneath. Viridi made her way up to the tent and knocked her staff on the ground outside, to get the attention of the occupant.

“Enter,” she heard a voice calling from the inside. It definitely sounded like Pit, though a much colder tone than she was normally accustomed to. She entered the tent.

The tent wasn’t large by any means, but it was quite roomy, enough to have a bed and a large table in the middle of the room, covered in maps. Hunched over the table, but his head turned up to look at the person at the door, was Pit. “Viridi.” He said, his tone only slightly warmer.

“Hi Pit. It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise,” he said, adding as he turned back to look at the map, “We can get on the move sooner this way.”

“Can’t we take a day of rest? I’m sure the troops wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

“Every day of rest we have, to more likely it is that Pandora could slip through our fingers. We rest for no one. We make our move.”

Viridi was stunned into silence. Pit had always been more easy-going, more laid back. This determination was something that she had never really seen before. “Alright,” the nature goddess was finally able to say, “you know best. We leave in the morning.”

“Excellent.”

A silence fell between the two of them, which Viridi found odd, considering how much of a talker Pit usually was. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could a messenger appeared at the door.

“General Euripides, sir.” The messenger bowed. He then noticed Viridi’s presence there. “Oh, Madame Viridi, I didn’t see you there. Forgive me.” He bowed again.

“Yes, what is it Onomastos?” Pit asked of the messenger.

“There is upset in the camp, sir. A group of dissenters, lead by Asasthenes of Corsica, is coming up here to take leadership from you. I thought it would be best to alert you to this, sir.”

“A coup, then. Thank you Onomastos.”

The messenger bowed and exited. Pit went and grabbed his bow from aside his bed.

“A coup?” Viridi asked, surprised.

“I’m not surprised,” Pit admitted. “None of the other angels like me very much. They all say I’m only here because I’m Palutena’s favorite. I’d like to see them try to run this though. The Underworld would win in two days if that were the case.”

“What are you going to do about them then?”

Pit broke apart his bow into two separate blades before answering: “Teach them a lesson.” He stormed out of the tent, Viridi close at his heel.

Outside waiting for him were the mob of dissenters the messenger warned of. Their leader, or so it seemed that way, called out as Pit emerged. “Oh, the great exalted demi-god himself has deigned us with his presence.” Their attitudes completely changed once Viridi emerged behind him. Bowing, the leader said, “Oh, Madame Viridi, we didn’t realize you were with the general.”

“I am,” Viridi answered, “and what am I hearing about a coup?”

“No concern of yours, ma’am. Just a quarrel between angels is all.”

“Yes, but this angel was appointed by a goddess, so your contesting of her choice means you’re going against her wishes, is it not?”

Pit held up his hand, as if to say “Virdi, stop. I can handle this.” Viridi fell quiet, as Pit approached the leader. “You want a battle for leadership, fine. Let’s do it, right now.”

“I refuse to fight in the presence of a goddess.”

“Oh, I’m sure Viridi doesn’t mind.”

“You will address the goddess properly,” the leader said, slowly moving his hand towards his hilt to grab his sword. “Or does being the teacher’s pet give you special privileges?”

Pit noticed the hand movement, and, as quick as lightning, he pulled out his blade and lopped the leader’s hand clean off, leaving a bloody stump for his arm. Pit leaned in towards the leader, now screaming in pain, and whispered in his ear “No one tells me how to address my friends.”

Pit pulled away, walking over to pick up the hand, and showing it off to the now shocked into silence mob. “Let this be a message to all of you: question my leadership, question your goddess’ choice, you lose the privilege of serving her.” With that, he punted the hand off the side of the hill. He pointed at the leader, saying, “Get that child to medical,” before turning and walking back into the tent.

Viridi was too shocked to follow him. She quickly retreated to her own tent to try and get a wrangle on everything she had just experienced. The determination against the Underworld Army, the boldness, the abrasiveness, none of this was like anything she had seen from Pit before. It was different, it was a bit scary, it was… sexy?

As Pit had grown older, Viridi had noticed her feelings towards him starting to change. Replacing the old feelings of “aww, he’s a cute kid,” were new feelings of, “oh, he’s actually  _ cute _ .” It was a new phenomenon for her. She, of course, knew what love was, it came with the territory of being the goddess of nature. But she had never really felt the effects of it before.

She finally worked up the courage to actually go speak to him again after night fell. She returned to his hilltop tent, nearly turning back several times, before finally knocking on his door again. She could feel her heart skip a beat as he said, “Enter.”

She entered the tent to once again find Pit hunched over the table of maps. He looked up again and asked, “Viridi? What are you doing here, at this time of night?”

“I-uh, just wanted to make sure we were leaving in the morning?” she sputtered out, face bright red.

“That’s correct, at dawn.”

“Well,” Viridi said, trying to regain composure and be as flirty as possible. “That leaves a long night in front of us.”

“I suppose it does,” he said, oblivious. A silence fell between them. “Well, is that all?”

Viridi was thrown off guard by Pit’s obliviousness, but she was determined to make this night worth it. “Well, we haven’t seen each other in a long time, why don’t we spend the night ‘catching up?’”

“We have plenty of time to do that on the road tomorrow.”

Viridi looked like she was about to burst, she couldn’t take it anymore. She rushed over to Pit, grabbing his face and pulling him in for a hard kiss. The kiss was cathartic, releasing all the pent-up emotions that had been bubbling over inside her for a while. As she pulled away, her expression was one of pure bliss. “I’m sorry I did that so suddenly, but it was the only way it seemed that you’d get the message.”

Pit was in a stunned silence. He managed to eke out a “Uhhuh.”

Viridi rested her head on his chest and whispered, “I know we’ve been friends for so long, so this is probably really weird, but I’ve started feeling this way only a short while ago, and what happened before… I dunno, I just had to act on my impulses.” She turned up to look at Pit, “You get that, right?”

Pit looked back down, and answered in a tone that finally seemed to return to the one that Viridi knew and loved, “Viridi.” He then kissed her back, just as hard, but Viridi was prepared. The two of them proceeded to stumble around the tent, lips still locked before they both fell onto the bed. They broke their kiss and looked each other in the eyes, both seeing a matching fire to their own in the others’. Returning back to the more cold tone, Pit whispered into Viridi’s ear, “Now it’s time to act on my impulses,” before nipping Viridi on the neck. 

Viridi gasped in surprise, as only one thought ran through her mind: “I love Pit,” a thought which only grew stronger and stronger as the two passed hour upon hour in each other’s company.

 

* * *

 

Viridi could feel her face blushing to recount all of that. Shaking off the shiver that ran down her spine, she continued, “Sorry, lost myself a bit in the memories. Anyway, following that night, we were a couple, which, of course, was unheard of. A goddess falling in love, let alone with an angel? It would have been the scandal of the eon.

Which is why we kept it a secret, pretending to hate each other in front of the troops while secretly meeting under the cover of night. Of course, Palutena found out, because it is impossible for you to keep a secret from her, but she remained quiet, thankfully. We pretty much kept this up for the entirety of the rest of the war.

There was something strange about that period though. It happened more frequently in the early days and seemed to die out towards the end. You… I’m not sure how to really put this. You seemed to switch between your normal self, the chipper, bubbly dork, and the ‘war’ you, the suave, serious, sexy soldier, with the former coming out on leave, only for the other to return when back on the battlefield. As the war continued, the returns of the normal you became less and less, to the point where by the final days, you lost yourself in what I can only assume was the cause of this split personality, your want for justice for your family.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t completely well at that time either, I had my own demons that came forth during that end period too. Especially when I saw how all of this was tearing you apart. I kind of just lost it. A lot of that time, extending to the time just after the war too, is a blur to me. I remember you disappearing after the final battle, but the rest is just gone. This is supposedly what happened, from what you told me.

 

* * *

 

The Great War had ended, the Underworld Army had been defeated and sent home. The gods had made an agreement that humans would never be put in the crossfire of a war between the gods again. However, there were some notable absences from this agreement, namely the Underworld gods… and Viridi.

Viridi ignored the urges of the other gods, she could only see red. The rage built up from hundreds of years of warfare had finally toppled over, and she needed to vent it out in a direction. It just so happened that humans, who Viridi had long held contempt for abusing the resources of the planet, were the perfect target for such a rage venting.

Within days of The Great War ending, The Forces of Nature were on the attack once again. Two major cities had fallen to Reset Bombs being dropped on them, and countless more were being bombarded by wave after wave of Nutskis, Toxiecaps, Mudrones, Bumpity Bombs, and more. Viridi had just become the enemy of all of humanity, as well as its protectors.

The other gods decided that something had to be done, but having just spent so much time and energy against the Underworld Army, they didn’t want to do the same against The Forces of Nature. Fortunately, Palutena had a solution: bring in the one person who really mattered to Viridi, who would be getting a really long break after this, considering how much he put into The Great War.

Pit knew exactly where to go in the Reset Bomb Factory, he had traveled here enough times to know his way around the natural facility. Just as he expected he found Viridi in the dead center of the factory, the Bomb Growing sector.

Viridi heard the approach of someone behind her but didn’t turn around. “Isn’t it beautiful? A bomb, normally a device of destruction, turned into a device of creation.”

“It creates by destruction.”

Viridi turned around, noticing that it was Pit for the first time. Pit, in turn, noticed that Viridi didn’t look normal either. Her eyes were glowing a sickly acid green, her skin had taken a pallid appearance, and vines wrapped its way around her, more so than normal. “Pit?” she asked, voice wavering. As she did, the glowing of her eyes began to flicker.

Pit slowly made his way into sight. “Hi Vri, it’s been a while.”

A small smile appeared on Viridi’s face before it quickly turned into a scowl. “The other gods sent you here to stop me, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, but you know I would have come anyway.”

“Well, you’d have to fight me to get me to stop.”

“Eh, I’m not sure I can do that.”

“And why not?”

Pit hobbled towards her, holding his arm. “I dunno, just a feeling I have,” he joked.

Seeing the injuries on the angel caused the glowing in the eyes to start flickering again, before glowing twice as bright as before as she furiously whipped around back to the bomb control panel. “THOSE HUMANS!” she yelled, speaking very quickly. “IF THEY WEREN’T AROUND FOR YOU TO PROTECT, YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER SUFFERED. I’LL KILL THEM ALL! THERE WON’T BE ANYTHING LEFT OF THEIR ROTTEN LITTLE LIVES! THEY’LL PAY FOR DESTROYING EVERYTHING I LOVE! DESTROYING FORESTS! DESTROYING OCEANS! DE-” Viridi fell silent as she felt Pit’s arms around her in a hug. She tried to continue, sputtering, “De-de-destroy… Destroying… De…” The last remnants of glow fading from her eyes, she burst into tears, turning around and burying her face in Pit’s shoulder. “What happened? Where did I go? What did I become, Pit?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that you aren’t anymore, and that I’m here, and always will be, as your friend, and your lover should.” Viridi looked up at him through teary eyes, confused. “Well, supposedly. I don’t remember a lot of stuff from the past… I don’t know how long, but from what Lady Palutena tells me, you and I were...in armored, I think she said.”

Viridi giggled. “Enamoured, I think you mean.”

“Yeah! That was it! Well, in any case, whatever started during that blurry period, I want to keep going with that. Do you want that too?”

Viridi nodded. “Yes, I’d like that a lot.” Reaching up she brought her lips to the angel’s, and let them fall together. When the two pulled apart, Viridi whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Pit whispered back.

 

* * *

 

“Crying into your shoulder was the first thing that I can remember again. After that, nothing really of important happened. A couple of thousand years passed, we’ve dated on and off throughout that period, but you’ve always kept your promise, regardless of our relationship status: you were always there for me. 

And here’s my chance to be there for you. We both have our personal demons, you helped me face mine. Now let me help you face yours. My worst fear, but what I expect to happen, is that the trauma you’ve no doubt experienced will cause your war side to come back. I may have fallen in love with it back then, but I know now that it will only cause pain and suffering to both you and those around you. If there is still the tiniest part of you in there behind your dark side, Pit, you have to stay strong, and fight back. It’ll be tough, but you have to push through. Do it for your new friends, do it for the real Palutena (not the one that cast you out, that one is a fake, the real one is still out there somewhere)... do it for me.

You have my blessings, and my love…”

Viridi rolled up the scroll, storing it in a safe place. The next time she would come down to Earth, which was probably inevitable at this point, she’d bring it down and give it to him, hopefully when he was awake… if she remembered to that is.

She sat down at the pond’s edge, dipping her feet into the water. She looked down, intending to take a deep calming breath to help her tone down the stresses of everything that was going on, but what she saw in the water shocked all the air right out of her, as she jumped back up and away from the pond.

It was her reflection, but it had a pallid complexion, and glowing green eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, this one was actually unexpected. I was originally going to wait a few days and do a different Gaiden story, which I still am going to do (surprise! Two Gaidens in one week!), but this one came up, and I couldn't pass on it (plus I did need a Smooch for today, and it fit this, and since I needed to give a lot of backstory, I decided to make it all one big chapter.
> 
> Also, even though I paired Pit with Phosphora mainly in my story, I still somehow found a way to get my main ship in, #PIRIDI4LIFE.
> 
> Today's Gaiden Story tease is:
> 
> "When the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go  
>  And you've just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low,  
>  Ask the N-Force, I think they'll know."
> 
> Comments and Criticisms are welcome as always!


End file.
